Saturday 2 August 2014

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

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