Chef Tak Yiu Sun is offering a service to prepare dishes with ingredients supplied by customers as a way to keep costs down. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Chef Tak Yiu Sun is offering a service to prepare dishes with ingredients supplied by customers as a way to keep costs down. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
As food costs rise to record levels, one East Auckland restaurant is asking customers to bring their own meat and seafood if they want to continue to have premium dishes like crayfish, crabs and paua at an affordable price.
Crayfish, which went for as low as $99 per kilogram at Chinese restaurants before the pandemic, are now going for between $260 and $320 per kg. Mud crabs have also doubled in price at most Asian restaurants, but it is still possible to get them for under $20 per kg at Pak'nSave.
Lucky Grill Seafood Restaurant owner Tak Yiu Sun says many are now being "priced out", as seafood dishes containing crayfish, crab and paua now cost a few hundred dollars each at Chinese restaurants here.
Crab on gluntinous rice prepared by chefs at Lucky Grill Seafood Restaurant from ingredients brought in by a customer. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
So Sun, 46, came up with a savings hack - which he says is a "win-win" for both his customers and his restaurant operations, while keeping his menu offerings affordable.
"I ask my customers to bring their own meat and ingredients, and we will cook it for them at our restaurant for a fee," Sun says.
"This is a win because their meal will end up being a fraction of the cost if they had the same thing at other restaurants.
"For me, it saves me the hassle and cost of having to keep a stock of these expensive supplies and also means I don't need to have a menu where I have to keep increasing the prices."
Janet Chan hands a mud crab she bought from the market to chef Tak Yiu Sun. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Food prices had their biggest annual jump in 13 years in August, according to the latest Stats NZ data.
Food prices lifted 8.3 per cent in August compared with the same time a year earlier, the largest year-on-year increase since July 2009, when prices were up 8.4 per cent.
However, Sun says, when scouring the weekend markets and Asian supermarkets, it is still possible for shoppers to find premium meat and ingredients at affordable prices.
"People can also opt for frozen ingredients instead of fresh ones to get them cheaper - it's still possible to get a bag of paua for about $50 to $60 instead of a few hundred dollars if fresh.
Chef Tak Yiu Sun prepares a meal with supplied seafood. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
"Whatever they bring to us, we discuss with them how they want it done, and we cook them to the highest restaurant quality for a fee of between $10 and $40, depending on the complexity."
Lucky Grill, located on Aviemore Drive in Highland Park, generally serves simple Cantonese-style rice meals consisting of roast meats such as Chinese barbecue pork and roast duck, but also has a menu of à la carte dishes.
Sun, who is fondly known as Ah Yiu to his customers, said offering the service of cooking with ingredients brought in by customers also gave his eatery a point of difference.
"If people went fishing and caught a fish and don't know what to do with it, they can just bring it in and I can steam it or cook it any way they want," he said.
Chef Tak Yiu Sun with the abalone dish he prepared from ingredients brought in by a customer. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
"Each dish is cooked to the personal taste of the customer after we discuss [the dish] with them, and [with] some of the ingredients like paua, we will ask them to bring it in a day or two earlier if they want the best results, as we can slow cook them to tenderness."
Regular diner Janet Chan last week took mud crabs, paua and sea cucumber, which she bought at a total cost of about $180 before paying $130 to get them cooked.
The crab were cooked two ways - one on glutinous rice and the other coated with salted egg yolk. The paua was braised and served with noodles, and the sea cucumber fried with seasonal vegetables.
Chan, who hosted eight friends at Lucky Grill with her self-bought ingredients, said she would have "easily paid more than double the amount" had this been ordered at a Chinese restaurant.
"I don't see going to the market to buy the ingredients as a hassle, I think it adds to the fun of the whole dining experience.
"What I like is also that I can describe how I like the dish to be cooked, and Ah Yiu will do it close to what I want. It actually feels like I have a personal chef."
Charles Chan, Janet's husband, described the whole dining experience as the "gastronomic experience of a lifetime".
Sun started his business six years ago and said he had started offering this new service during the pandemic.
"Food prices were skyrocketing, but I feel that after Covid-19, all the more people need to go out and gather in-person with friends, and affordability shouldn't be an obstacle.
"People can bring in whatever they want - for simple dishes I just charge $10 to cook, so it's possible for them to get a really cheap restaurant-quality meal."
