Address: Sky City Atrium, Level 1, cnr Federal and Victoria streets
Phone: (09) 363 6000
Website: skycityauckland.co.nz
Some 70 million Cantonese can't be wrong, can they? But at the risk of offending this terrifying number of people, their preferred style of food, and the most popular Chinese restaurant style in the western world, is not top of my Asian food favourites.
So when the Canvas editor brought Sky City's newish Jade Dragon restaurant to our attention in that compelling manner that paymasters have, my enthusiasm was not unbounded. One of its pitches is that it specialises in authentic Cantonese food. I'm in no position to rule on this claim but as it turned out the four of us, the minimum number I believe can do justice to a Chinese meal, enjoyed a pleasant, if not exciting, evening.
The premises are spacious and the decor was reminiscent of a restaurant in Hong Kong, if lacking the noise and bustle you find there. But one of the private dining rooms had that occasional procession of small family members which had a familiar ring.
The menu is, as expected, lengthy and with some entries that are vaguely unsettling to the Eurocentric diner. I was unable to persuade anyone to go for the pork jowl or the abalone with fish maw, although as the latter was $98 this might have been no bad thing.
We started more conservatively with a couple of dim sum and soups. The dim sum featuring coriander and prawn dumplings, pork dim sum and other goodies was a cut above the average, fresh and full of flavour and elegantly served, as were all the courses later. The dried scallop, fish maw and sea cucumber soup was declared a little bland but the Szechuan hot and sour soup was a bit of a winner, if provoking the suspicion that its thickening might have been helped by a bit of cornflour.
This was not, of course, Cantonese nor was our less than adventurous choice of the Peking duck. This was a pretty good example of the dish, the first stage being suitably crisp skinned, and the second stage, the minced meat sang choy bow with lettuce leaves, well flavoured.
The seafood platter was good with a nice range including steamed soya prawns, fried spicy salted squid, oysters with vermicelli, deep fried fish and, particularly notable, tiny scallops with a thick bean sauce topping.
For a red meat option we went for the wok-fried lamb fillet with onion, cucumber and black fungus. The meat was in larger chunks than I expected for a wok dish and a little on the chewy side but the black fungus sauce was rich and tasty. We rounded the meal off with the boneless pork ribs with honey sauce which we picked because the idea of ribs off the bone was something of a novelty. They were, however, unremarkable and tended to get a little gluggy.
By this stage we were all more than full and were not up to further exercising the excellent staff by bringing on the desserts, a temptation I find easy to resist in Asian restaurants. At the end of a busy day it was a relaxing, convivial evening and that is, I guess, what entertainment venues like Sky City are all about.
Rating out of 10
Food: 7
Service: 7
Value: 7
Ambience: 7
Our meal: $271 for two dim sum, two soups, four main courses, three beers and five glasses of wine.
Wine list: A good and reasonably priced selection. We enjoyed our Spy Valley gewurztraminer preceded by Tsingtao beers.
Verdict: Comfortable premises make a good venue in which to relax. Sound, if not outstanding, food and excellent service at a price that doesn't shock.
