In a new column, Amanda Saxton chronicles the culinary landscape of small traditional restaurants, where characters, culture and community are front and centre. For her first instalment, to mark Canvas' special Labour Weekend edition, Saxton visits Gunusu, Wellington's Tibetan-Yemeni hole-in-the-wall where coffee is yellow, carrots are black, and the aim
is no less than world peace.
You never know quite where a meal at Gunusu will take you.
Go for Tibetan noodles, enjoy a Yemeni-style rack-of-lamb instead, go back for more black carrot juice. You probably didn't order the juice (it's not on the menu), but Gunusu's chef and owner Yanbu Vang is wild about these carrots and will insist you try "just a little". Both Vang and the juice are compelling.
"They're grown in Ōhakune!" the 33-year-old enthuses, brandishing what looks like a severed rhino's tail. Un-juiced, black carrots are long, whiskery, and a deep dusty purple. Gunusu sells regular carrot juice too, also coconut, tangelo, and whatever takes Vang's fancy at the farmers' market. All gloriously fresh and in glass bottles you're encouraged to bring back for a discounted refill. Or try "sweet Tibetan wolfberry tea", the prettiest drink in Wellington.
Only Vang could create a restaurant as enigmatic as Gunusu, the name an embellished acronym he invented meaning "Good Noodle Soup". An ethnic Tibetan, Vang belongs to the famously Buddhist region's Muslim minority. He was a clarinet prodigy growing up in a town perched higher than the peak of Mt Ruapehu, whose first job was at a Chinese magazine called UFO Research. Then he got a master's degree in petroleum engineering and spent four years working in Dubai's Burj Khalifa. Abandoning a lucrative career to chase "a bigger dream, to make the world more peaceful," he was accepted into Victoria University's postgraduate Strategic Studies course. Vang wants to be a diplomat, but is immersing himself in New Zealand society first. To "improve my cultural competency," he says. Last year that meant working as a bus driver. In April 2021, he opened this restaurant. Somewhere along the line he fell in love with Yemeni cuisine and taught himself to cook.
Don't spend too long with Gunusu's menu. It's more abstract than most. Simply order 'Teyoshido', the description of which reads: "Tell your chef what you don't eat then eat and drink whatever he gives you." Whatever Vang gives you will look exquisite and taste like nothing you've ever tried (unless you frequent Tibet or Yemen).
Hopefully a lamb will be involved. Tibetan-style (showva) or Yemeni-stye (haneeth), both are melt-in-the-mouth meaty celebrations of regional flavours. Showva is slow-cooked with lashings of ginger and tongue-numbing Sichuan pepper, two of few plants enjoying Tibet's lofty altitude. Its description is a disclaimer: "Not as nice, because too much oxygen over here [in New Zealand]". Asked to explain, Vang says hopes diners will consider how geography, culture, and circumstance not only influence food's taste, but the way humans perceive things in general.
