Tok Tok was heaving when we showed up and they had no record of our booking. But the woman in charge was the soul of charm, accepting that the blunder was theirs and rejigging things so we got one of the best tables, in the sun-flooded covered deck that extends the place out into the northern end of The Strand.
Tok Tok (presumably an alternative spelling of the onomatopoeic name for the auto-rickshaws ubiquitous in Asia, though I can't find it anywhere online) is the new venture by Minh Lu and David Cao, whose Le Vietnamese Kitchen in Ponsonby seems to have become a fixture after a shaky start.
The intention is more pan-Asian: pork ribs are done in the Cantonese char siu style; kingfish sashimi; red and green curries (the latter features mutton, a much under-used meat, which they call "grown-up lamb" for fear of evoking memories of the classic Kiwi fatty roasts). Shaking beef and pad thai fly the flags of Vietnam and Thailand respectively.
