New Zealand

Well this week was a bit interesting.  I found a restaurant called the New Zealand Café and I thought Jackpot!  Who would have thought we had a restaurant specializing in New Zealand food.  I didn’t even know what that might be other than probably mutton so I was looking forward to it even if was in Matthews.

Imagine my surprise when I walked up and they are advertising $1.00 sushi.  It’s a fairly small place but apparently quite popular as it was almost at capacity 10 minutes after opening and they have the tables squeezed in to maximize the seating potential.  I got a seat and was provided with not one but four menus. There was the new sushi menu, the daily special sushi menu, the regular sushi menu and the everything else menu.  I was beginning to suspect they might specialize in sushi.  I like sushi but I just had some excellent fish for dinner so I opted for the everything else menu in the hopes of finding something New Zealand-y.

Not even one mutton dish and nothing else that felt unique to NZ.  So with a bit of disappointment I ordered the New Zealand pork chop.  While I was waiting I got a look at some of the sushi rolls and bento boxes being served to others and I have to say they looked pretty good.  When my meal arrived it was on a tray, as you can see below, like the bento boxes and the way the pork was cooked it reminded me of what I had in Japan.

The pork chop was fried and served with onions and a mayonnaise sauce that turned out to be sweet which was a surprise and better than I expected.  I went with noodles instead of rice and it came with salad, two fried shrimp and two chicken skewers.  The meal was good but really felt much more Japanese than anything else.

I expect you could get all the items on the menu in New Zealand somewhere but nothing on the menu was uniquely New Zealandish.  If I was in the area again and felt like grabbing some sushi I’d join the crowd and grab some here because it looked quite good and they had a huge variety.

On the other hand the Tell Me More page has a music video with some amazing scenic shots of New Zealand, plus a kid friendly recipe.

Like the title mentions there was a disappointing lack of hobbits for a place with New Zealand in the name.