Azabu's tuna ceviche - a restaurant dish that still looks like a restaurant dish, even after the car trip home. Photo/Kim Knight
Ahead of the great reopening, Kim Knight reviews one last takeout - and considers the creative dining solution we might borrow from another eating city
Last week, a friend from New York told me that when Covid was over, I'd miss it.
She was not diminishing the horror that engulfed her country. But, as her city finds its new vaccinated and masked normal, she's remembering the months when it was quieter and slower; when she had space to cook and walk and think. In the worst of times, she said, she had found time.
Of course, it's not really over. But she is ecstatic her kids are back in school after a year at home. She is very happy to, once again, patronise restaurants (and the occasional tequila bar). She thinks she will probably always wear a mask now, especially on the subway, because even in her New York heels she is short - and she is done with breathing the droplets that drift from noses higher up than hers.
We talked for almost two hours. I was supposed to be writing this and now I'm typing late into the night to make my deadline. This is, partly, what my friend meant. Covid has made us sick and frayed, but it has also allowed many of us to reorder our worlds; to tailor our days to our individual needs, instead of an homogenous, hierarchical whole.
The new world requires less rigidity, more rule-bending and creative thinking. And so, in New York, restaurants have been given carte blanche over the parking spaces outside their business. Outdoor dining is safer than indoor dining and delicious curbside shantytowns have sprung up. I wondered, as I waited in an empty car park outside Azabu, Ponsonby, why we don't do that here?
Azabu's pivot to takeaways is a little different than the standard queue-at-the-restaurant door. Here, you phone when you arrive and a staffer deposits your pre-ordered dinner in your car boot. Seamless and contactless, assuming you have a car and have discovered the restaurant's Maidstone St entrance.
On the night of our visit, Azabu had run out of paper carry bags. Our food was carefully packed in a large, flat box and I loved the grand, anticipatory reveal - Christmas, without the novelty socks.
I have actually kept the sushi trays for a Christmas Day reappearance. All plasticware should be this raw fish and/or fresh cherry friendly. Take your cue from Azabu and don't forget the garnish. The tiniest specks of tobiko (that flying fish roe that sticks like glitter), micro-herbs and dots of mayo and chill paste placed precisely so, turned my living room into a restaurant. In lockdown, the closest I've got to garnish is parsley on my mashed potatoes.
If you had the pick-up slot after us and ended up with karaage chicken then I'm sorry-not-sorry, because your teriyaki chicken ($34) was sensational. The sticky, succulent meat (far more than you might expect) kept its chicken skin crackle and was served with broccolini and rolled wodges of furikake-packed rice that made me a little maudlin. I first tasted that sesame-seaweed-salty-spicy spice mix at Kyoto's Nishiki Market. Sunday night on my suburban couch in front of Country Calendar was not the same.
Cheer yourself up with the sexiest vegetable side order anywhere in the world. Asparagus and corn kernels ($9) were a lovely little combo, slathered in a butter-miso-yuzu sauce so lush you could have poured it over icecream or pancakes or bare naked flesh.
Azabu's Nikkei-inspired menu means aji amarillo chilli on the seared tuna and pickled daikon alongside the lamb cutlets. This Peruvian-meets-Japanese cuisine is a stunning collision - mostly. I found the cucumber salad ($8) too refined. I appreciate the effort (toasted almonds, a splash of coconut cream, et al) but I like this dish better when it makes my mouth pucker and my eyes stream, as my brain struggles to process wallops of vinegar and chilli against the cool crunch of vegetable. This version was too timid.
Seared salmon sushi roll stuffed with tempura prawns? You get eight pieces for $18 and each one will put you off mall sushi for life. Also recommended: Anything from the raw fish selection. It's pricey ($25 for the tuna ceviche) but oh-so-elegant and sophisticated. Just looking at it makes you momentarily forget it is 14 weeks since you had anything waxed or trimmed.
It has been a lamb-flavoured lockdown. From slow-cooked and Schezuan-soaked to spit-roasted and stacked for shawarmas, every restaurant has made our national beast their own. At Azabu, they offer lamb chuleta ("chops" if you've been keeping up with your Duolingo). They are proper, meaty cuts; the kind you might remember your mother grilling and serving with tomato sauce. Next time she's in town, take her to this restaurant: Grab the bone with your hands and use your fingers to scoop up every drop of a fiery coriander sauce and a moreishly smoky aubergine puree ($38).
I licked my fingers and imagine this dish eaten outdoors on a sultry Auckland night, throwing back cocktails to cut through the fat and surveying a car park that is so much nicer now it is dedicated to tables and chairs and plates. Unlikely? The great restaurant reopening is upon us. Let's hope the city's rulemakers will help those who want to serve dinner with a side of creative thinking.
Azabu
26 Ponsonby Rd, Grey Lynn.
savor.co.nz/azabu-ponsonby
We spent: $11 for two.
ROOM FOR MORE? Some other things Kim Knight ate this week ...
Umu Pizza: Cheese on toast is delicious. Honey on toast is delicious. Now imagine that toast is actually a great big, billowy pillow of sourdough pizza base. Scorched black on one side and loaded with gorgonzola, mozzarella, provolone and mascarpone on the other. Add a drizzle of chilli-spiked honey and this is the $22 "number seven" pizza that segues from savoury to sweet in every glorious mouthful. We also had the Sicilian sausage and broccoli laden "number five" - just because it's pizza doesn't mean you have to skip your greens - but my photo was terrible, so drool over the "number two" (pictured) from our archives instead! (Umu Pizza, 469 New North Rd, Kingsland)
Barilla Dumpling: Is there anything you can't add to a pork dumpling? Prawn. Fennel. Coriander. Mushroom and water chestnut. I've had (and loved) them all. But on the first night we could add to our backyard bubbles I found myself wondering what to order the vegetarians. "Mixed vegetables with no eggs" (20 pieces for $17) came packed with juicy, peppery cabbage which doesn't sound great but these dumplings really went the distance. At 2am, the stragglers ate the leftovers cold and still declared them delicious. (Barilla Dumpling, 571 Dominion Rd, Balmoral)
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