Gyoza King, Ponsonby

If you're not keen on pork and prawns this is not your sort of place. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

Herald rating: * *

When I came back from a month in Japan friends would ask me about the wonderful food I had discovered. But, aside from a few banquets and rare treats, I had been a traveller using the New Zealand dollar in a First World economy.

Most days it had been noodles and a beer, or delicious fried squid and serviceable gyoza - crescent-shaped dumplings - available on the streets or in markets.

I should have remembered the gyoza when we invited my wife's sister and her partner to try the newly opened Gyoza King on Ponsonby Rd. It proudly bills itself as New Zealand's first gyoza bar. And bar it is, if most accurately described.

The Gyoza King is small - catering for perhaps 30 patrons at tables and another half dozen at the amply stocked bar - and is wide open to the deafening noise of the Richmond Rd intersection.

Things didn't go well. I had booked a table for four and noted a pleasant one in the corner with a reserved sign. But our hostess guided us to two tables pushed together against the wall. We were obliged to sit on the three remaining sides, John and I in shouting distance at each end, and Megan and Tanya staring at the blank wall.

The hand towels arrived (and remained on the increasingly cluttered table for the rest of the meal) and I ordered a bottle of wine from the reasonable list: a Pegasus Bay riesling at $45.

As we were looking at the menu a group arrived at the reserved table, used the hand towels, read the menu and left. I guess they didn't like pork or prawns because, basically, at Gyoza King that is your choice. Neither Megan nor Tanya eat pork.

There were selections of pork and prawn gyoza prepared in slightly different ways: for example, ebi gyoza is pan-fried minced prawn with cabbage and ginger, and the pork regular is minced pork with cabbage and garlic.

As at a yakitori bar, you order by the plate.

It's cheap enough at $4.80 for six pork gyoza. Prawn gyoza in soup was $6 for four pieces and pork with miso paste and chilli $6 for half a dozen.

The prawn gyoza in a chicken-based broth, served in a small tureen, was difficult to eat with chopsticks - the dumplings fall apart. Spoons might have helped.

We also ordered broccoli with mayo ($4.50), three bowls of rice ($2 each), two lots of crispy chicken wings (delicious, three pieces for $6) and half a dozen deep-fried cheese gyoza ($4.20). Take out the wine and it was only $60 for four, although none of us felt satisfied by either the taste or quality. We had mistakenly gone to Gyoza King for dinner - hardly their fault - but it isn't that kind of place. This is where you can have a drink and nibbles. You would drop in here for a quick lunch or before going to the movies.

Or before you went out to dinner, as Tanya said.

It isn't the quietest or most comfortable place to sit so we scanned the dessert menu and decided to go elsewhere. We went to Fish in Kingsland for a glass of wine and superb desserts of icecream, fresh fruit and tarts, thus salvaging an amusing but largely unsatisfying evening.

Address: 107 Ponsonby Rd

Ph: 09 360 8638

From the menu: Negi miso gyoza of pork, cabbage, garlic, ginger and chives topped with miso paste, chilli and spring onions ($6 for six). Slightly fiery and not to everyone's taste, but quite delicious.

Wine list: Good selection of New Zealand wines, many available by the glass. Sake, spirits and cocktails.

Vegetarian: There's a gyoza with cheese and side servings of things like cabbage and broccoli, but that's about it. This is a pork-and-prawn place.

Bottom line: The business card says it's a bar and that's how you should think of it. Lots of bite-sized gyoza in a friendly but small and occasionally noisy room doesn't constitute a night out in a restaurant.