Kobe Station Review : Pancakes. Donburi. Bento.

Hey everyone :D (I have to change up the ladles and jellyspoons greeting every now and then, yes?)

Jia here agaaaain(really rethinking this partnership). Another short post this time!! Will probably have a lot of these for snacks that may or may not count for meals.
Anyway, I ate at this place this afternoon as a snack after uni because I was really hungry for some reason(Maybe I'm growing, yay! Just hope it's upwards and not sideways haha). I see this place in the Newmarket Train station square sometimes when I end up there and I'm always quite curious about it. So today, I finally tried it.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere, as with most Japanese eateries, is created by the decorations. In this little store they had large prints of places in Japan(I believe the middle image is Hokkaido, possibly? Another wall had a picture of Tokyo at night time I think), little banners and fans. The dark wooden structure also adds to the Japanese atmosphere of the place somehow. It was a fairly simple design. There were to tables to sit at and the window bar to sit at. It was very quiet, but I think that applies to majority of the square. There wasn't much you could do with the place to be honest.

Food

I had a pancake because I was curious as to whether it would be like the Korean pancake place in town. I had a Teriyaki chicken pancake. I expected just chicken but it came with vegetables in it too, which was a pleasant, healthy surprise. From what I could see and taste, I gather it was cabbage, and some carrots strands. Since I was having Teriyaki chicken I thought it would be appropriate to have Teriyaki sauce too(There were other choices but I wanted this). I couldn't really taste the chicken over the vegetables though and I found that a little weird. However it was quite nice, and about the same size as the Korean pancakes from city, just cut up. Definitely not the same pancake texture as the Korean pancake, though. While the Korean pancakes have actual dough thus come out more like a thick fried pancake, this one is more... crumbly, I suppose? If anyone has been to Chinese Dimsum(or as some say, Yumchar), it's a lot like the Chinese white carrot cake(Savoury, not sweet). I also got a complimentary hot drink(choices were miso, coffee and green tea), and I chose miso. It was a tad sour compared to what I'm used to but it was nice, especially on a cold day.

Presentation

As I mentioned earlier, and as one can see from the image above, it's pretty different to the Korean pancakes(yes, yes. I keep mentioning it but I haven't done a real post on it. I'll get onto it next week). Not only in texture but in presentation too. Whereas the Korean pancake comes to you whole, this one comes to you cut up into quarters and then the sauce is squirted on one half, and the other half is then placed on top. I might have preferred it just halved, really. But it does make it easier to eat I guess.

Service

The service was really good, they were friendly and patient. I also like the complimentary hot drink, especially for winter. They also closed the door when I mentioned it was cold today, though that might have been because they were cold. I'll never know. Even if the place was almost empty, the food came out pretty quickly, let's say in about 3 minutes. I ordered takeaway but decided it was cold outside so I ate indoors, and fully intended to throw my rubbish away. They noticed I was holding my rubbish when I was leaving though and insisted on taking it from me, which I thought was really nice. Another thing I like about Japanese eateries is that they greet you and say bye to you too.

Price

 Pancake is $4.50, the donburi is approx $10-15, and the bento is $12. A hot drink is $2. I find these prices pretty reasonable, and student-friendly. I think they try to cater to all the students and business people who go through the station through out the day. I don't really get how the complimentary drink thing works because I didn't see any promotion for it, so I'm thinking that it was just on the house or something.


Rating: /10

Atmosphere:       5
Food:                  7
Presentation:      4
Service:              9
Price:                  8

Overall: 6.6/10

Thank you for reading this far~

Just the one Lamb

Movenpick in Parnell (well, most places really) Review

Greetings ladles and jelly-spoons~

This review is particular to the Parnell store but I find in general that there is a consistency in the Movenpick stores with their cleanliness, flavours and décor. Ice-cream is delicious. This review is going to be really short because you can't go wrong with ice-cream.

Atmosphere:
I like the clean tables and nice food pictures decorating the white walls. It's peaceful and quiet for an after dinner snack. There were simplistic details like wooden floors and walls, and rich red coloured pictures on the wall that made it just a bit warmer to the eye. The tables were spaced comfortably apart, although there weren't any tables that fit more than 2 people on it, so our group of 4 had to sit on different tables.

Food:
The most popular flavour when I went last week was vanilla and brownie, and I can see why it's popular. It's like cookies and cream but subtly different. Macademia dulce is nice too. As I said, hard to go wrong with ice-cream. I like that there's always a range of icecreams that you don't usually find in the isle at the supermarket(or at least, not that I've seen since Korea), and its all scooped neatly for you in a cone or cup.

Presentation:
The short fat cone was something new for me, im used to the slimmer cones of New Zealand Natural. Otherwise it was a normal scoop of ice-cream in a cup/cone. I used a cup because I am infernally slow at eating and my ice-cream always drips down my cone. The spoon was cute too, like a little plastic paddle. Yes I kept it. It shall be my dessert spoon from now onwards muahahahha.

Service:
The staff were friendly unlike some people who work in the ice-cream parlours who make me feel bad for ordering sprinkles. They also knew what was popular, which is good for recommending to people like me who are indecisive.

Price:
I think it's more expensive than the usual NZ Natural but seeing as it's Swiss ice-cream and it has it's own store with tables and all that, the prices are reasonable.

Rating: /10

Atmosphere:       9
Food:                  9
Presentation:      8
Service:              7
Price:                  5

Overall: 7.6/10

So yeah I hope you enjoyed this relatively short post. Two posts in one day, woohoo!

Sesame Street pun!!

Just the one Lamb(again.)

Phoenix Tree in Remuera

Hello Random Citizens~

Jia here, but no pun today haha. Also, yes I recently watched Megamind. I've been a little MIA lately because of camp, sleepovers, university starting, etc. As a result of not blogging, however, I did stockpile some reviews to post so that sorta makes up for it, right? Anyway, I ate at Phoenix Tree on Remuera Rd with my father some months ago, and here's what I thought.

Atmosphere:
It's a pretty quiet place on Remuera Rd with calming instrumental music in the background. The tables are set rather close together and the tables, while fancy, are a bit small. I love their decorations, from the furniture, to the draperies and paintings on the wall. Everything screams Euro-Asian fusion.

Food:
The menu consists of a large range of both European and Chinese food. Although the dishes look deceptively small, they're actually really filling. We had braised lamb ribs, which was quite fatty after a few bites, but I liked the tender meat that was juicy and not chewy or dry. It had cute little carrot flowers and capsicum for colour and vegetable. Might be preferable with rice since it has a lot of sauce.

I can't fault the fried rice, it was rather generic. With Japanese seaweed on top, there was a nice combo of meat and other ingredients' flavours and textures. I didn't get a picture of it unfortunately, but I can tell you that it looked just like fried rice, with some green Japanese seaweed on top.
We ordered a side of fish cakes because my father likes the ones in Thai Village. As it turns out, he didn't enjoy these ones as much, although I didn't find them any better or worse.

I wasn't sure if I'd like the strange combo of Mozzarella cheese and baked kumara, so I tried it for dessert. I liked the mix of salty and sweet. There's something about melted cheese that just makes it better than non-melted cheese. I did find it incredibly sweet though and frankly there wasn't enough cheese to make up for it.

Presentation:
I liked the dishes that they used, and the colours. It looked presentable, apart from the mozzarella cheese and baked kumara, although they made an effort with the butterfly design.

Service:
While the staff were friendly, they weren't very attentive. To make up for it, there's a button to press for service, which I always like. Even with that option though, I didn't like how they didn't clear up the table when dishes were finished, especially since it was a rather small table and could barely fit things as it was. Thus, it was messy. You're probably thinking; "Why don't you just press the button then?" but given that I had to press it for menus, drinks, and ordering, I was starting to feel a bit bad, as well as slightly peeved. The staff themselves perhaps were busy, but I saw them sitting around at the reception desk chatting instead of checking on tables so I'm not sure about that.

Price
The food was generally not bad, and the price is normal for a restaurant, especially in Remuera. I do not, however, think that the dessert was worth $12, nor was the glass of wine worth $10. In total we spent about $67 for two people, although we probably ordered enough to feed 3-4 people with small appetites.

Rating: /10

Atmosphere:              8
Food:                         5
Presentation:              5
Service:                      2
Price:                          4

Overall: 4.8/10

While my rating is apparently not very good, that's not to say you shouldn't try it yourself. Maybe you'd have a different opinion. I do like the food but the surroundings were more appealing than the food, to me. The phone number is 095201099 if you're interested though.

Thanks for reading!
Just the one Lamb