Its obviously been awhile since my last post. Sorry! No, I have not forgotten about the blog! A combination of things really. I have a backlog of places that I want to talk about, but haven't had the opportunity to talk about them due to my heavy university workload. In addition to uni work, I've also been rather unwell. Handing in my last research paper in particular was a nightmare. Attempting to write a paper of good quality is impossible when all you want to do is sleep! But after sacrificing many nights of sanity and sleep, I eventually tackled through and now all my papers are handed in complete!
Welcome back life, I've missed you.
In 13 days, I'll be off on my one-month trip to Japan/Singapore/Thailand! I'm so excited. I can't wait to let you guys know about my food travels - whether in Japan, Singapore, Thailand, or even on the airplane! Mmmm food.
Degree Gastrobar204 Quay Street, Viaduct Harbour, Auckland 1010
The last time I went to Degree was approximately four years ago. Prior to yesterday's visit, I had only been to Degree for lunch a few times and the experiences that I had were pretty reasonable. Yesterday, Rapper T -- who has requested for a new pseudonym, but will not get one -- and I went out to dinner last night to celebrate the end of his exams ("How was the exam?" "Well, it's over." How vague). Thanks to GrabOne, we decided to venture to Degree as a result of the voucher I purchased.
The menu. Goodness gracious, the menu is huge. To be honest, having a large menu can actually be a disservice. Degree specialises in stonegrill dining, which is when your food is presented upon a hot volcanic rock, and the actual cooking process happens at the table (sizzle, sizzle). Degree has a range of specials everyday. For example, on Thursday's it is pizza night, and mojitos are $9.50 (as opposed to their normal price of $15).
Rapper T and I both decided to forego the specials, and we started off with a sweet onion and mozzarella pizza bread ($8.50). The pizza bread is the only thing that I remember from four years ago, and it did not disappoint! The onions weren't overly sweet, and the combination with the mozzarella was great (but then again, anything with cheese is a winner in my opinion).
Both of us ordered the surf and turf main off the stonegrill menu, consisting of a 200gm rib eye steak, 2 scallops, 1 king prawn, with green leaf salad, sage butter potatoes and aioli ($29.50 ea). The photo above is crap (and I apologize), but it was impossible to take a picture of the whole dish since the dish was too wide! That and I was lazy. The photo was taken about 30 seconds after the waiter placed it on the table.
I quite enjoyed the interactiveness of the dish, but the dish isn't really designed for people that cannot cook or do not know how to cook meat/seafood (Rapper T, I'm looking at you). Scallops in particular have an extremely short cooking time, and if you overcook them, they are a disaster to eat. Who wants to eat a rubbery scallop? Not me.
The dish was okay, but the actual design of the dish had major flaws. First of all, the sides of the dish (the potatoes, aioli and salad) should be on a separate dish from the actual stonegrill. The heat extracted from the volcanic rock caused the salad on the side to wilt, thus losing the crunch of the salad. Before the salad wilted, it was actually rather tasty. Post-wilt = ruined. Also, once you've finally seared your steak and cooked your seafood, it would be more appropriate to move it onto another dish, to stop the cooking process. I didn't want to leave it on the rock, so I shoved my meat to the side of my potatoes, but there wasn't enough space.
Secondly, more utensils should be provided to prevent eating from the same utensils that were used to cook with. A spatula or mini tongs would've been nice.
Last of all, the sage butter potatoes were extremely bland. I couldn't taste the butter or the sage. The potatoes were crushed (as you might vagely be able to see in the photo above; not from my plate, but from Rapper T's plate). Rapper T thought that they tasted as if they had come out of a microwave.
Overall thoughts on the dish from myself was that it was okay, but could've been better. Rapper T gave the dish a 6/10.
As for dessert, we ordered the Chocolate Tasting Plate for Two ($18.50). I asked the waiter what was on the tasting plate, and he struggled to tell me. I let him off with that since he was attentive and polite. He finally concluded on, "Lots and lots of chocolate." The tasting plate included chocolate dipped strawberries, chocolate tart, chocolate brownies, chocolate eclairs, chocolate...something, and biscotti. Biscotti on the plate was rather weird since I normally attribute biscotti with coffee (and we didn't have any coffee). The mini chocolate eclairs were unanimously the best treat on the plate. Mmmm. Excluding the biscotti, the tasting plate was pretty good.
Overall verdict: Food was mostly good, not overly fantastic, and the main could've been a lot better. Food wasn't cheap, but I don't think it was that expensive (considering the portion sizes, the prices were the norm). Service was surprisingly really good. All the waiters/waitresses were extremely polite and attentive. Athough it was a busy night, all of the food arrived promptly to our table.
