Auckland eats

I have written in seperate posts about my sessions at the 2026 Auckland Writers Festival, which keeps me pretty busy for a few days: this post is mainly about what I eat between events. I have quite a list of eating places noted on Google maps since I made plans for coming to Auckland - 42 items in fact. There’s no way I’ll get through them all, but I start with a coffee at, no relation to Shortland Street, Maeve on Anzac Avenue. From the outside, it’s pretty innocuous, just a scruffy shop front with its name barely visible. If I didn’t know it was here, I’d probably walk on by. Inside, it’s a different story.

I did think I’d head away from the central city for the day, until I realise that I have a writers festival event in the evening, so potter around Anzac Avenue a bit: it’s too early for lunch at Xi’an Noodles or Tanpopo. Besides, I’m staying in Fort Street, so if I want noodles: where else am I going to go? King Made Noodles is the obvious choice. They’ve only been here since 2019, but it seems much longer. When I come, I normally over-order but today, I restrain myself to just the classic beef noodles.

Listening to the people around me, it seems that everyone is either Chinese or a lawyer (or possibly both - my language skills won’t detect a Chinese speaking lawyer). The room may not look too busy, but just after I take this photo a large group of older Chinese people, most men, most clutching a gift bag, swoop in and take every possible seat. I’m still eating when they leave. I hang out in the library for most of the afternoon.

After the event, I catch up with a mate and we go in search of a late dinner. I present her with 4 options, she selects Korean so we head to Pocha, just down the street from where my office used to be when I worked in Auckland, many years ago. It was a dull place then, but has changed dramatically since the 1980’s (Thank God!). The menu is bountiful - I resist the fried chicken (it would go so well with the beer I don’t resist), nearly order a meal intended for two, and settle on their spicy seafood ramyun. There’s a lot going on in this soup, and it’s delicious!

Thursday, my only real achievement for the day is to change locations, from Fort to Turner Street, for better access to the writers festival. Haka House was the YHA Auckland City until YHA went broke: the beds have been modernised, but the place is showing signs of age. My only real annoyance here was with the manager: she and her mates tended to take over the social area late at night and get very loud.

When travelling, on the rare ocasion that someone wants to know what sort of work I did, I normally just say that I was a teacher, and that seems to satisfy them. One fellow here, however, pressed for specifics and when he found out, sat down and talked to me for an hour about his ideas for a PhD in AI and philosophy. I think I gave him some useful information about the path he’d need to take and it was a good chat - we have several more during my stay.

I have a big breakfast at the lovely Honey café in the library, which throws out my normal eating pattern: I don’t feel like lunch until late afternoon - yet more noodles, this time from 1982 Xinjiang Rice Noodles, and then don’t feel like dinner at all, so just have a few skewers at Bomb Fried Skewers.

These places aren’t from my list, just places I stumble upon as I wander around hungry. I do go to a place on the list for Friday breakfast, and again for Saturday lunch, because two particular dishes have drawn my attention. Lumi on Darby Street (not to be confused with Kumi on Courthouse Lane) does souffle pancakes and great coffee.

The pancakes do taste a big eggy, but I’m glad to have tried them, and I come back for the second thing they are talked about for, Hainanese Chicken. They actually call it Thai style Hainanese Chicken, which is a bit odd, as Thailand has its own version of chicken rice. There are a couple of other things on the menu which I see come out looking good (chicken & waffle, and a thai chicken curry) but I don’t come back.

Friday night, I’m again looking for a late night (after 10) meal: while I don’t have the BBQ Duck Café, I do have the interloper Café BBQ Duck - it has a slightly down market feel from the original, but serves up a decently sized meal.

In Thailand, I eat pad kra pao almost every day, and keep trying versions in New Zealand. They are pretty much never authentic - the thai basil is an essential element and is normally missing - but still, they can be tasty meals and put some veges in my diet - like these ones from the Thai place in the Atrium food court and Chom Na (both are also missing the crispy fried egg).

I go back to the Honey café for another breakfast - this time I have good old mince on toast and take a photo: it’s really good.

This isn’t Honey, it’s Remedy, on Wellesley Street, a popular place. When I was in Kazakhstan, I went a couple of times to a chain restaurant called Navat - they were big affairs with extensive menus. I don’t think they are related, but a new Uyghur restaurant called Navat has opened in Auckland, which I try on Sunday night.

I remember an accidentally delicious (because I had no idea what I’d ordered) meal I had in a random pub in, I think, Kyrgystan, which was basically a pile of mutton, onions and potato roasted together. When I see the same thing on the menu here, I order it: it’s a pale imitation, looking and tasting as if they had just put everything in the deep fryer together.

To finish on a positive note: Auckland has spent years and billions of dollars upgrading its urban rail service, so that trains can transit through the inner city rather than terminating at what was Britomart, with a couple of new inner city stations to be added. They have not said exactly when it will go live, but it’s expected to be within the next few months. The new stations are looking pretty compete - the effort is on testing: this is the new Te Waihorotui station on Wellesly Street.

Cheers!