Lolita’s Kitchen

On Sunday Night, our group went to try the Empress Garden Chinese Restaurant. It apparently has been operating since 1983 but I never knew about it until ~McZ invited me. The restaurant is in an old corner store down the quiet, residential no-exit end of Jervois Road - Herne Bay. To me, it looked like one of those Chinese restaurants in Chinatown like the ones Jacky Chan movies are filmed in. They have won Metro Corbans Restaurant of the Year twice in 2006 and 2007. They specialise in Northern Chinese Cuisines which incorporate wheat as a staple food instead of rice.

We ordered their legendary Peking Duck (Pin Pei Ap) (NZD$80). Three courses were made out of this one duck

1) Crispy duck skin and meat wrapped in pancake

2) Duck Meat wrapped in Lettuce

3) Duck Bones in Tofu Soup

Next, we ordered Gai Si Fan Pei which was cold chicken slices with cucumber, rice noodles and peanut sauce. May be this is the Chinese version of the Indonesian Gado-Gado or Ketoprak (??)

Chau Lin Go (Stir fried Rice cakes with Cabbage)

Choi Pong Hai (Imitation Crab meat using egg white mixed with egg yolk) - I thought this was slightly scary at first, because it didn’t look very interesting. But when I tried a little bit, it was actually damn good. You seriously can’t tell that those were egg whites. Definitely nice.

Siu Lung Bau (mini steamed pork buns with vinegar). This thing here uses this black vinegar that my mother likes to use in her cooking. So yeah, definitely a taste that I won’t forget.

An Si Guen (Deep Fried Rolls with condensed Milk). I love this, I remembered selling this in Lantern Festival the beginning of last year.

Dau Sa Wor Beng (Red Bean Pancakes)

Overall, I really enjoyed my gastronomic experience in here :). Would definitely come back to have more Peking Duck!!

Here’s the address

227 Jervois Road, Herne Bay, Auckland City

We went to try out Ichiban on Sunday night for the third time. I was a bit reluctant because when they used to sell their yakitori, the food back then was rather salty - in fact too salty for my liking. So, I gave it another shot because I heard it has just been awarded Metro’s best Late Night Takeaway Restaurant 2007 in Auckland.

He tried Stamina Ramen ($11 NZD) - it was like some pork cooked with tonnes of chives and heaps of spring onion in a form of starchy soup. Seriously, I thought it tasted like something Lor Mee? (Is that how you spell it?). I tried the usual Yakisoba ($10 NZD) - fried noodles. I thought the one in Tanpopo was much nicer. (okay, i promise to do a review on Tanpopo later on when I go - It’s my favorite Ramen House!)

I thought it was really different from the usual place that we go to (i.e. Tanpopo). Ichiban some how tasted like some Chinese infused Japanese type of cooking, whereas Tanpopo just tasted more authentic Japanese. May be these restaurants represent how people from different parts of Japan cook their ramen. None the less, it was pretty good and the price was reasonable. I give it 3/5 stars.