HAZY TIGER
Cuisine: Korean
Address: 22 Durham St West, central city
Phone: (09) 377 7998
Website: Hazytiger.co.nz
Reservations: Accepted
Drinks: Fully licensed
From the menu: Cucumber salad $8; chicken skewer $8; bulgogi beef taco $11; kimchi tuna roll $11; prawn pancake $11; minced beef short rib $16; bibimbap
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.
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Advertise with NZME.Last time I visited this address it was a lovely Japanese restaurant called Kushi. That was in 2019 and my review left no doubt as to what was going on in my life at the time.
“It was probably the fastest restaurant meal I’ve ever eaten, for a number of reasons,” I wrote. “My car was parked in a loading zone and my wife’s cervix was moving into the unloading zone”. God, I’m sorry.
Well, the child subsequently unloaded is about to finish his first year of school and things have moved on in Durham St too, with the arrival of Hazy Tiger, a Korean late-night restaurant with much to recommend it.
The nightclub vibes are strong, with a lot of darkness and vertical LED strip lights hanging from the ceiling. The staff are nice and friendly but you don’t see much of them – you order by holding your phone over a QR code and then choosing from an online menu. I was going to spend much of this review talking about how much I don’t like this idea but I’m trying not to turn into a grumpy old man so let’s move on.
Okay but let me just point out that in a world where everyone is staring at their phone instead of looking at each other, the last thing we need is a restaurant trend where staring at your phone is compulsory. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.
But also, I like chatting to the waiter about this and that. I don’t know enough about Korean food so I need somebody to talk me through the menu, tell me what’s what, explain the vision of the restaurant, answer my stupid questions. That’s often the best part of the night! I felt robbed. But I’m not going to go on about it.
I was dining with Allan, a good enough friend that he no longer bothers to protect my feelings.
“I was telling some of the girls at work I was going out with Jesse Mulligan tonight ...”
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Advertise with NZME.“Oh yes?”
“None of them had ever heard of you.”
“Oh.”
“So I showed them a photo of you and they still had no idea who you were.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
We were both famished so I ordered a couple of dishes while Allan continued chatting away about the ephemeral nature of fame. The food and drinks arrived fast, and soon we were eating happily and sipping from shot glasses of green grape-flavoured soju.
The menu is divided into sections by price. You can see a small photo of what you’re ordering, along with a brief description, but I think it’s mostly designed for people who already know what all this stuff is. We chose grilled chicken from a selection of $8 skewers and it arrived bright and unbelievably juicy. Next were beef tacos, a lovely and indulgent snack with deep-fried tortillas and that familiar bulgogi flavour along with stretchy, scorched mozzarella on top.
This was going nicely. You’ll have already gathered that the food is comfort upon comfort and in anticipation of this we ordered a cucumber salad, diced and vinegared with a pool of gochujang covering the plate. Everything that arrived we gulped down in moments. It was a happy feast and we kept daring each other to eat more food, making our way through the menu with veracity and audacity.
It’s hard to pick a favourite but the bibimbap is a great order, fun to stir up and delicious to eat – particularly those crispy little bits of the rice that made contact with the hot stone bowl. Kimchi makes a cameo here and even more memorably in the sushi, where canned tuna is mixed up with rice and then wrapped in fermented cabbage leaves. If that sounds like a lot, well, it is, but it’s a great example of something you won’t find anywhere else. If you’re into seafood flavours you should also get the saewoo jeon, a sort of shrimp cake fried crispy in the pan with what I think must be rice flour, that slightly rubbery consistency making it incredibly moreish to the bite.
Some restaurants create a party atmosphere which you join in with when you arrive but Hazy Tiger is more the place you come to create a party of your own – a group of 10 or so friends at one table looked completely happy and were enjoying passing around bottles and plates.
Most of the customers were young – too young to complain about the low lighting – and the price is right for that demo. We ordered 10 dishes and multiple drinks and still got out the door for less than $200. This is not the restaurant for a 10th wedding anniversary, but it’s pretty unbeatable if you’re looking for an evening that is all about food and good friends.
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