Auckland Restaurant Review: Full Time Isn’t Your Run Of The Mill Sports Bar

FULL TIME SPORTS BAR & EATERY

Cuisine: Sports bar

Phone: (09) 815 0340

Website: Fulltimesportsbar.co.nz

Address: 498 New North Rd, Kingsland

Drinks: Fully licensed

From the menu: Smoked eggplant $13, crayfish wontons $18, beef brisket $9, barbecue chicken wings $18

Rating: 16/20

Score: 0-7 Steer clear. 8-12 Disappointing, give it a miss. 13-15 Good, give it a go. 16-18 Great, plan a visit. 19-20 Outstanding, don’t delay.

I don’t write in a bubble so, while I used to avoid reviewing terrible restaurants, these days I don’t mind throwing one in every now and then to keep the Herald subs team happy. That’s why I went to dinner at Full Time, a sports bar I’d avoided when it first opened because the food pictures didn’t look good.

We wandered into this mega tavern, in the old Neighbourhood Bar in Kingsland. Though it was a sunny day the dual garden bar areas aren’t particularly designed for summer lounging – in one of them a giant screen is compulsorily tuned to the greyhounds with TAB commentary at full volume, while the other has another big screen, mercifully muted to allow for some music when there isn’t a particularly big game on. It is very basic of me to visit a sports bar and complain about all the sports I know, but I mention it to warn you that this is a venue passionately and exclusively designed to make you watch TV. It’s not the sort of place I’d recommend you visit with colleagues for an after-work wind-down unless you’re all problem gamblers.

So far so good for my review. All I needed now was for the food and service to be rubbish and I could begin working on my excoriation. Then the maitre d’ wandered up and I’m afraid everything got good.

The difference between a great bar and a forgettable bar is whether the staff look like they want to be there. Everyone at Full Time has a sweet and contagious energy, and they’re led by a manager with loads of experience at big venues with big menus.

“No, no, no,” she said when my friend tried to order a cheap glass of red. “You don’t want that.”

I liked her a lot. The bar has a long list of beers and a long list of spirits but not all that many wines. Perhaps there’s not much call for them – if you were looking to kick on after the game you’d probably head towards tequila rather than merlot. Do people kick on?

“Sometimes we’re still packed at 2am,” she reported.

“No, there’s no dancing.”

I looked up in time to see the dog in box two comfortably win race 12 at Ipswich. Full Time the nightclub didn’t sound very appealing, but dinner time was going well.

You don’t expect fine dining from a sports bar menu, but you don’t want to be eating one of Seymour’s lunches either. In fact, Full Time takes its food very seriously, with a locomotive-size smoker in the car park that adds character to much of the menu, even if it’s not the full-on American barbecue flavours you might get, say, up the road at Brother’s Beer.

I ordered as much as I could on your behalf, but the dishes are all very, very large. I can full-throatedly endorse the smoked eggplant – halved and dusted with spices then served on a simple yoghurt sauce. I also loved the dumplings, available with a range of fillings and served in a set of four, partly overlapping each other on the plate. We went for the crayfish, served with a little spicy nduja oil and chopped pūhā, but all the options looked pretty good and all tilted Mediterranean, so picture ravioli rather than wontons.

Some “Big Meat” felt pretty compulsory, so we ordered a really decent brisket. This cut of beef obsesses the type of people who spend Saturday night in a sports bar and it is good enough to keep them happy, without being life-changing. It’s served with plenty of mash and at $39 would easily be enough food for one, with the bar’s signature (and surprisingly light) coleslaw on the side.

The brisket is apparently cooked for 40 hours and there are signs of this care and attention right through the menu. I’m pretty sure she said the chicken wings are “tea-brined” and they are certainly juicy, served in their classic Z shape which helps when picking them up. We took a classic barbecue glaze and it was hard to stop eating them – there is also an option for a very spicy sauce if you’d like to film your own version of Hot Ones.

You could probably interview someone from the table next to you; it’s that sort of place, filled with media people you know, or almost know. Hot weatherman Willie Waiirua said hello when we first arrived, then later another familiar face stopped by on his way to pay the bill.

“That was Keven Mealamu,” I said to my friend when he left.

“Nope,” he said. “It was Ben Lummis.”

He was right, I think. I tried not to feel bad. For all I know Ben went home and told his family he’d met Simon Dallow.

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