Bone Apple Teeth: The Delicacies of New Zealand

The holy food post has arrived, a fitting piece for my final entry. First up for discussion: the general food climate in Auckland.

If I had to pick one word to describe the food in Auckland (besides delicious) it would be Asian. There are a ton of Asian immigrants in the Auckland area, so basically every other restaurant featured cuisine from one country or another. Koreans specifically are absolutely killin’ it with the food. I had their delicacies twice, and both occasions were divine. The first time, we had Korean BBQ, where you pay a flat rate and you just get a bunch of raw meat/vegetables and cook them on these big frying pans at your table. There are a bunch of sauces so eating two giant stips of bacon can stay exciting the whole time. I’ve never been and it was super dope I would strongly recommend (as long as you are smart enough to cook your food properly no salmonella please :) ). The other place we went was just like a regular restaurant but I had some stellar short ribs, just straight up rib meat nuggets and some sauce which is exactly what I want all the time. All of it was way more authentic than I’ve had in America (I don’t live in a super heavy Korean area so that might just be me).

You know what else was super awesome? DUMPLINGS. Sumthin Dumplin, our favorite dumpling place, revolutionized my world. Of the five dumpling flavors, I always got the pork ones because I’m what’s called basic. They have different sauces though, and I did mix it up there. My favorite was probably the OG, which was like a chili type sauce with peanuts and mystery cubes that I think were like bacon but this is unconfirmed. It’s just the right amount of spicy and helps accent the pork well. My second favorite was probably the sriracha mayo which was a lil spicy but mostly creamy (one of my friends got this sauce every single time we went so it was definitely a banger). The third is the sesame sauce, which is also creamy, and sesame-y (wow). The last ranking, but still delicious, sauce is the garlic vinegar, mostly because one time I dropped a dumpling in it and it splashed out onto my phone because it’s a real liquid and not like a sauce sauce. I still really like its acidity though, and it not being drizzled on the ‘plings like the rest of the sauces makes sense because of its consistency. All of the sauces were super good though. I was never dissatisfied with Sumthin’s work and always left with zero regrets (except maybe not buying more dumplings). When I go back, that’s definitely the first place I’ll eat at.

Kiwis do have their own native foods, and while the Māori people (native Pacific islanders) have a lot of cool dishes, I didn’t really get to have any since things were cut short. So we’re gonna focus on what I did have, which was the more commercial/white people stuff. First up are milkshakes. Hold up, we have milkshakes in America. Indeed we do, but Kiwis refer to what we call a milkshake as a “thickshake”, while their version of a milkshake is essentially flavored milk. Low key I don’t like milk, but I loved NZ milkshakes, specifically the lime ones since they were kind of like a key lime pie moment. Another drink I loved was L&P soda, which was this lemon soda that tastes like lemon drops and sunshine and is not available in the US :).

Are there any bad foods? Not explicitly, but there’s one that stands out as...sus. It is: spaghetti bolognese and r i c e. When I first heard of this, I was offended both as an Italian and a human being. However, said spaghetti is canned and has zero structural integrity (and thus deserves no respect), so the rice actually helped to provide substance to the mushy “pasta”. So all in all it wasn’t bad, but I would take real pasta over this big brain combo any day. 

I think we’ll “wrap” it up with snack foods (haha please laugh). Everyone’s heard of TimTams. Everyone loves TimTams. If either of these statements does not apply to you, consider rectifying this issue. Now, I will say NZ TimTams are better than US ones. They have more flavors for sure, like honey and salted caramel (both slap hard). Another snack food that you definitely haven’t heard of is Pineapple Lumps. They’re just like pineapple flavored marshmallows with a chocolate coating, which sounds weird, but it works. Especially if you freeze them boys. Lastly, Hokey Pokey ice cream, my sweet angel. Honey ice cream with lil bits of honeycomb in it (the sugar candy honeycomb not the actual wax fest of real honeycomb). I read about it before I left for NZ, and I’m glad at least that got crossed off the to-do list, even if visiting the Alpine fault didn’t. Sadness over tectonic plate boundaries aside, I was more than satisfied with my New Zealand experience.

And that’s all for my hot takes. Thanks for reading y’all.