ON MY PLATE

Denise Irvine eats at a new place, an old place (but a goodie), and does a shout-out for a local cookbook.

Peking duck, the super-star of a tasting menu sampled with friends at the swish new Shanghai Chinese Restaurant, in SkyCity, 346 Victoria St, Hamilton CBD. First we had the duck as traditional make-your-own pancakes:  tender, crispy-skinned meat layered on light-as-a-feather wraps with julienned celery and finely sliced spring onions, carrots and cucumber, and finished with perfect sweet and sticky sauce. Then duck again, a bowl of fried rice with chunky chopped duck, vegetables and wonderful umami flavours.

Everything freshly made, exquisitely presented, the table set with fine white china and sparkling glassware, there was helpful service, and the dishes kept coming. There were several styles of dumplings plus pan-fried pork buns, vegetable spring rolls and delicious, chunky pickled cucumber; a bowl brimming with tofu, scallops, squid, mussels and prawns; stir-fried mushrooms; sizzling eggplant with crispy texture; and a spicy chicken hotpot with a decent whack of chilli.

The tasting menu, we said, as we laid down our chopsticks, is a treat.

Shanghai Chinese is the work of Jianchun Yang and business partner Zhaojuan Gong, who operate a sister Shanghai restaurant in Rototuna. Their SkyCity venture is big and bold, a 100-seater with four private dining rooms, an impressive fit-out, and the vast main menu incorporates dishes from the Chinese provinces of Zhejiang and Sichuan, including a number of seafood specialties. Head chef Xiaolong Zhao has come from China to take up the position in Shanghai’s open-plan kitchen. 

In a word (or more): attention to detail is everything here.

Kāwhia snapper served with lentil dahl, spicy carrot puree and crunchy kale, at Palate, 20 Alma St, Hamilton. This was a generous bowl of perfectly judged ingredients. The snapper was the hero, beautifully fresh, lightly golden and caramelised on the outside, moist and flaky on the inside. A pleasure to see local West Coast fish on the menu, with not many too food miles gobbled up on the trip across the Kāwhia hill to Hamilton. And, of course, they know what to do with it in Palate’s kitchen: the dahl, carrot puree and kale offered excellent flavour and texture, and a clean bowl was returned to the kitchen. Palate is an oldie but a goodie, with the kitchen team led by award-winning owner-chef Mat McLean, and capable business partner Larissa Muller at front-of-house.

In a word: Classy.

Roasted cauliflower with lemon, currants and pinenuts, cooked at home from a delicious recipe in the newly published Nourish The Cookbook Vol 2, which is as local as you can get, the work of Hamilton-based Vicki Ravlich-Horan and Harriet Boucher. Vicki is the owner of Waikato-Bay of Plenty Nourish magazine, and Harriet, a trained-chef, is a Nourish staff member.

The roast cauliflower is one of several things I’ve cooked already from their book. I subbed the currants for golden raisins (suggested as an option) and the sweet-tart flavours were a lovely match with the nutty roast cauliflower. I served it as a side for scotch fillet and followed the cookbook’s “How To” guide for cooking this cut. It’s a dry-frying method, different from what I’d typically do: you dust the meat with flaky salt and cook in a smoking hot-cast iron pan, flipping it side to side at one-minute intervals, and rest before serving. It worked brilliantly.

The book has a goodly dollop of Vicki and Harriet’s favourite go-to recipes such as slow-cooked beef cheek with gremolata (my next effort); sweet chilli cauliflower; brussels sprouts and bacon pasta; salsa verde crumbed lamp chop etc). There are also more complex recipes for experienced cooks and some great foundation recipes that teach readers how to make a white sauce, meringues, poach or scramble eggs, and cook a good scotch fillet. I can certainly vouch for the last one.

In a word (or two): Warmly recommended.