Wynyard Quarter Part II: Marvel Grill

Hey everyone! This is Part II of my Wynyard Quarter/North Wharf series, and at this very moment I'm procrastinating from writing an essay that's due on Monday. I'm terrible. Tomorrow morning (for me) is the big day. No exaggeration. The All Blacks are playing the Wallabies in the semifinal of the Rugby World Cup (...if you live under a rock and didn't already know) and the entire nation is counting on the All Blacks to win. It's a win/win situation for me. If they win it's not only great for me, but also for the entire country. However if they lose, I won't be there when everyone suffers because of it (win for me!). I still remember the 2003 and 2007 RWC's and it was downright depressing.

Anyway....

Marvel Grill

34-47 Jellicoe Street, North Wharf (Auckland City)

Following from my trip to Jack Tar, my next excursion to Wynyard Quarter was on the weekend before my departure at Marvel Grill. Six of my friends and I celebrated my farewell (okay, celebrated is clearly the wrong world, but it was essentially the main reason as to why we were there). I had actually heard some not so good things about the new Marvel Grill, such as their service not being up to scratch, despite the food being okay. Their flagship restaurants is in Takapuna, and they specialise in grilling and cooking/grilling prime cuts of meat.

The reason as to why I chose Marvel Grill was more to do with one of my friends. We were at the Observatory Deck at the Skytower and I was looking at the list of restaurants/bars available at Wynyard Quarter on my iPhone. I wanted to go to to Wynyard Quarter before leaving and this was before knowing that I was eventually going to go to Jack Tar the very next day. I said to my friend, "Pick one," and she did.

I was pretty unorganised that week. So many things to organise, so little time. I have to say though that their booking system is flawed. They have two phone numbers – one for their booking system and one direct line to the restaurant. I called the booking system line the day before and all I got was an auto-reply message that stated that [they] check their phones for reservations "in the morning and in the afternoon." How vague. I called at lunch time and I never back from them the whole day. After my night out at Depot, I was not happy. So I called their direct line and officially made a booking through them (though the phone call conversation was a comedy in itself, who knew it would take so long?)

"Could we get your last name please?" (No first name? Okaaaaay...).

...a few minutes later after spelling out my last name...

"T for Thomas?"

"No, no. P. P for Plum."

"Huh? T for Thomas?"

"No. P."

"P for Phillip?"

"Yes, yes. P for Philip."

"Okay, next letter...."

....

The next morning I went to the gym just about an hour and half before my booking, and as I was on the cross-trainer I received a phone call. "Hi Jessica, you called for a booking – a table for seven today at 1 o'clock?" Sigh. Despite all of the hassle (karma for me booking the day before), I'm glad that I made a reservation (...or two). Most of us were actually a bit late, but it was extremely packed when I got there and while we were there for lunch.

We asked the waiter assigned to our table if we could wait and order until everyone arrived, and they kindly obliged. While it was convenient to have all of the menu on one page (see above), logistically it was not that great. Three of my friends had ordered the steak options (two eye fillets - $26/32 depending on its size; one sirloin - $28). Each steak option came with an extremely small watercress salad, one vine roasted tomato, and with a sauce of your choice (all three ordered the creamy mushroom sauce). The one thing that bothered me from looking at their dishes was the little portions of watercress and tomato. The menu did say tomato, rather than tomatoes, but it's just a bit ridiculous really. Two of the three had ordered the steak dish at Orbit a few days before, and they both agreed that their steak dishes were cooked and tasted much better than the ones at Orbit.

I had ordered the steak dish at Orbit too (sigh), so I wanted to try something different. I ordered two of the smaller hot skillets – the lamb fillets with squashed peas, roast tomatoes, and crispy onions ($14), and the veal schnitzel on a warm potato salad ($14). I enjoyed the veal immensely, and while I thought the potato salad was okay, the gherkin flavour was too predominant. But that's just me, I don't like gherkins or pickles of any kind. The lamb dish was my preferred skillet overall, despite the tomato being slightly overpowering. But the textures and flavours mostly worked well together. I shared a side of onion rings with my friend ($7), which was also another thing that happened to taste a million times better than Orbit.

One of my friends ordered the organic roasted chicken breast ($26), with a side of wilted spinach, with bacon and onion in a creamy garlic sauce ($7.50-$8...I didn't capture the price on my photo). I forgot to ask him whether he liked it or not, but I'm pretty sure he did. Although I vaguely remember him saying that organic chicken tasted pretty much the same as "normal" (non-organic) chicken. Heh. I lost the photo that he took of his dishes too...whoops...

My last two guests shared two smaller skillets and a side of fries ($6) after I frowned at one of them for thinking about ordering the burger. In no right, sane mind should you pay over $20 for a burger, unless Heston Blumental is the chef that is making it for you. The skillets and fries weren't enough for the two of them, and he was curising me for not letting him order the burger, ha. (He could've ordered it, I'm not the boss of him!) They ordered the maple chili glazed pork belly with an apple slaw ($14) and the Southern style chicken tenderloins with ranch dressing ($14). Both dishes looked pretty appetising and apparently they tasted pretty good too.

The major letdown of all the meals was probably the easiest thing that they could've stuffed up. The side of fries. Seriously. How hard is it to stuff up fries? They tasted (and looked) like they were overcooked, dry – as if they had fried them in advance, and left them out of fryer for such a long time before serving. Very disappointing.

The wait for food was a bit long – although to be fair, they were extremely busy. They were very attentive towards us when they wanted to be (especially during the beginning). There was one thing however that almost ruined the experience and almost spoiled a good lunch. I queried the waiter as to whether we could pay separately for our meals, since the menu did not specify their bill preference. Most restaurants tend to operate on the one bill per table policy, but the waiter had specified that we could pay however we wanted. Big trouble there. Yes, it might seem like my friends and I are really annoying, but if you had a choice you'd pay separately too! If they said one bill per table, we would've complied. :) It actually seemed rather easy paying separately since the bill had separated all the orders by guest on our table. We went to the cashier and we all paid for what we had ordered. Or so we thought. Long story short, the last person to pay was overcharged and was charged more for her steak than was required. When the owner/manager came around to deal with the situation, she was not exactly polite with my friends and did not handle the situation very well at all.

Overall comments: It was a shame that the aforementioned incident had happened, because we actually had a good time while we were there. Both the service and the food had mostly been good up until that point. Although, I still can't believe they managed to stuff up fries... It's been over a month since we were there, so hopefully things have turned around in terms of the owner/manager's behaviour.