Auckland Restaurant Review: Hanoi Haven In Takapuna Serves A Knockout Duck Curry

Hanoi Haven

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Address: 40 Hurstmere Road, Takapuna

Phone: (09) 263 6393

From the menu: Calamari $22; prawn rice paper rolls $18; tamarind prawns $36; duck curry $37; beef in betel leaves $36

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.

Shout out to my fortnightly Q and A column at Viva.co.nz, which receives some of the best and most interesting letters from Auckland food lovers. Where can I eat with my dog? Who makes the best gluten-free pizza? I’m locked inside Commercial Bay, can you please call someone?

I do my best to answer these questions from my own experience, but I’m not too proud to call in experts when required. Last week, when somebody asked “Where can I find a good Vietnamese pho to get me through chemotherapy?”, I wasn’t willing to take any chances.

You can read the whole saga in this week’s column online but suffice to say we found something more than suitable. Thank you Phở Yến Gia Truyền from the Botany Night Markets! And good luck with your exciting plans to take your food to a wider audience.

I didn’t order the pho at Hanoi Haven because we were sharing and life is too short to try and divvy up noodle soup. But we did give the menu a good working over, and left this Takapuna restaurant happy and full.

Hurstmere Rd is a pleasant sort of strip to wander down in the early evening, and though none of the restaurants are likely to make any sort of ‘best of’ list, they seem to achieve their goal, which presumably is to be just good enough that the locals don’t bother driving into the city.

It’s not impossible to run a great restaurant on the North Shore – check out Milford’s Olle which I reviewed last week, or Northcote Point’s The Engine Room which I don’t think I’ve ever reviewed because who needs to hear again how good they are? I may as well review sex.

But Hanoi Haven is aiming a little lower. The staff are nice but all they do is go and get what you ask them for: their key skills seem to be smiling, and carrying. The restaurant has been open almost a year and when I asked one of them how it had been going she said “good? I think?” and then walked off. That’s okay, waiters are under no obligation to make friends with the customers. But given the … functionality of the experience I’d have hoped the prices might be a little lower.

We started with calamari rings, which may sound more like gastropub food than Vietnamese, but apparently it is a thing there, often deep-fried in breadcrumbs like it was here. It’s traditionally served with at least one good dipping sauce and ours was a decently spicy chilli mayo. All pretty straightforward stuff but as with the other dishes it was fresh and colourful thanks to some generosity with herbs and chopped vegetables.

A plate of rice paper rolls stuffed with prawns and vermicelli went down fast even if they weren’t going to win any culinary prizes, with a thin peanut sauce on the side.

A green papaya salad – the best test of a southeast Asian kitchen – was lovely and moreish, dressed lighter than the more common Thai variety and without the searing heat. Then came the duck curry, which was a knockout – a surprisingly complex gravy the colour of ochre, spicy and a little sweet with rare sliced duck breast and pieces of kumara bobbing in the sauce.

I thought we’d found our dish of the day but it was about to arrive. Beef – I’m uncertain of the cut due to the paucity of waitress chat – cooked and pink and wrapped tightly in a betel leaf. I didn’t know much about these but googled them and see they have similarities to our kawakawa – though I’m not sure I’ve seen the latter used in this way. They would have been a complete dish by themselves but they came with an unexpected accompaniment – rice noodles pressed into a tiny square mat in which you could wrap up the betel-encased beef, and dip the whole thing in nuoc cham (a light fish sauce dressing).

What does all this add up to? You’ll eat well here but don’t book it for your 20th wedding anniversary. That’s okay, sometimes a good enough restaurant is exactly that.

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