Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland has a lively food scene that reflects the cultural diversity of its people
over the next few weeks we're doing a deep dive into the food scene in Panmure
one of our favorite suburbs for eating in this video we take you into the kitchen of
a restaurant specializing in northern chinese food you'll see noodles being pulled by hand and drool
over the hot and sour soup dumplings we share koturoti a sri lankan street food staple famous
for the clanging and pounding of iron blades on the hot plate as it's getting whipped up
and dive into south africa's most beloved fast food bunny chow we're hunting down
auckland's best eats hit subscribe and get ready for some mouth-watering food
i'm thomas and i'm sheena and we're chasing a plate we hope you're hungry let's eat
this is video two of a four part series
here in Panmure we're on this trip because this is a very special strip here in Auckland
with so much diversity and food just today we're going to be eating northern chinese food
sri lankan food and south african food so there is so much variety on the strip
that we could not pack it into one video so we wanted to do a four part series to show how much
diversity there is here we're starting today with northern chinese food and i cannot wait to eat
yeah yeah hi okay so can i grab a number 37 please and a 103. thanks so much
so xi'an food bar specializes in food from xi'an which is from northern china
and northern china's staple crop is wheat so we've ordered some handled wheat noodles
and also some dumplings in a hot and sour soup which is another specialty of the city
the ladies have been kind enough to let us into the kitchen to see how our dishes are prepared
so the lady here is making the hand pulled noodles and she's literally taking
bits of dough pulling them out separating them bouncing them on the stainless steel table
they look really good great texture
all right it's all going the kitchen both of our dishes are
cooking away so we've got the hand pulled noodles they're cooking in boiling hot water in this
wok here and then our dumplings are on the boil we ordered pork and chive dumplings
and they're cooking up and then they'll be plopped into a hot and sour soup oh can't wait
this is so we've got our two dishes in front of us we ordered the hot and sour
soup with pork and chives dumplings check out how beautiful the color of that is so it's got this
really heavy slick of chilli all over the top and then we've got the hand pulled wheat noodles so
this is the most popular noodle dish the ladies tell us and it's topped with braised pork the
pork looks really super tender sort of falling apart but i've got to get into this hot and sour
soup so we've had this dish before and it is absolutely delicious so we had to
order it again and show you guys so the soup base is made up of vinegar and chili
and you can see that chilli on the top there's it's probably going to be a little bit sorry
it's delicious i have a bit of a coriander crunch there
ah it's very uh lively and fresh so the vinegar has got a really strong kick not too spicy in fact
so we've got these dumplings boiled pork and chive dumplings with a wheat flour wrapping
super hot man alive that was a kick in the mouth the temperature was so hot but delicious so the
meat has got a great flavor very light so it's not tightly packed so loosely packed minced pork
the kick of the chives so dumplings and noodles are very common in sienna in northern china
like i was saying the staple crop is wheat so you'll find like dumplings wheat noodles buns
um or more so then you'll find rice because it doesn't grow as well
in that region of china man this is so delicious
time to dig into the hand-pulled noodles i love watching them get made i think it's
so special when they're made fresh in the kitchen and for one you hear that sound the
noodles getting pulled it's something special about that and these look great it was neat to see
them bubbling away they've been covered in braised pork a whole lot of chilli there there was some
sauce down the bottom i'm just going to mix them up a bit get that sauce right up onto the noodles
oh they look so good look at that now all coated in that goodness there's some cabbage in there too
oh
that is a great dish that is such a classic dish you can see why that's one of the most popular
ones or the most popular dish on their menu it's simple the noodles are perfect
not overcooked not undercooked beautiful texture on the on the teeth when you eat those
and then the sauce and that meat not too much of anything it all just delicately coats the noodles
and the noodles of the hero there oh they're really good i love this northern chinese food
it's so hearty and filling and well that little bit of spice it's good
this is a massively diverse strip here in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
we're actually making four videos on this one strip of road this is only 550 meters
it's so diverse there's so many different places to eat that we thought we cannot cram it into
one we're gonna make four videos showcasing what's along here so we've just gone from chinese there's
great noodles and dumplings and now we're heading up a sri lankan restaurant for some
string hoppers and some roti kottu roti and some curry bring it on
we're at Ambula restaurant for some sri lankan classics we've popped in our order
and now we're heading into the kitchen to see our dishes are being made thanks so much
this to me is the sound of sri lanka the sound of the middle uh choppers going to make this uh
street food i can really hear myself i think this clanging is what you hear on
the streets of sri lanka and you know that there is some delicious kottu roti
uh in store for you so Sahan here the chef is just gone for it it starts with a jumble of vegetables
so cabbage carrot onion it's cooked all over a hot on a hot plate uh Sahan adds spice he has
chicken gravy and he has a big pile of roti or flatbread and he goes hard at it with the metal
choppers just making that clean sound chopping it up mixing it up it is smelling delicious in
here
we've been watching the string hoppers being made string hoppers are another sri lankan
staple they're actually in here steaming away what they are are a rice flour and
water dough that gets pushed through this into a little sort of a
nest of noodles rice flour noodles they get steamed and then you eat them with a curry
thank you our lunch has arrived the spread looks so good loved watching it getting made it's always
such a treat to get back into the kitchen so we can show you guys the process that goes into
creating these dishes so we've got the kottu roti we've got a beautiful looking chicken curry and
a lovely gravy we've got the string hoppers that we saw getting steamed and pumped through
that amazing little machine and we've got a fresh coconut sambal here which
looks amazing and is going to go very well with the curry and the string hoppers
kottu roti to start so we've got sri lankan spicy on this it's covered in chillies fresh chilli
there was a heap of chilli in the dish as well before it went on and i love this dish it's so
audio pleasing because you can hear it you walk down the street you can hear it being made you
can find a restaurant serving kottu roti from the sound and i think that's lovely it's not
all about the smell like most dishes and they take that flat bread pile it on with cabbage
carrot leeks eggs whatever filling you want we've gone with chicken and then it's all just
chopped up together spices it's an amazing dish to see being prepared
oh oh wow oh i'm gonna get some chicken
oh spice is very good it's such a jumble of flavors so oh hiccups because there's definitely
a good kick of spice going on in there but it's such a great jumble of flavors because of the way
it's prepared and because it's full of bread so it's flat bread or cut into little pieces
and then all jumbled together that just takes on liquid so the flavor just pushes right through the
roti i love it crunch from vegetables chicken's very tender it's on the bone so it's just and
it's falling apart so it's falling off the bone oh this is a very good kottu and i love the spice
it is a great spice level it's definitely spicy but it's not going to blow your head off oh yum
i get to dive into this chicken curry i'm just spooning the gravy over the chicken
pieces and i can smell the spice the spices just wafting up into the air and sri lankan
cuisine is known for its spice sri lanka grows a lot of its own spices so pepper
chilli cinnamon so the food is just jam-packed flavour-packed with a load of spices so this
chicken curry you can see it's got a really thin gravy and really huge chunks of chicken so
that's quite common with sri lankan curry huge chunks of protein and quite a thin curry gravy
and then we've got these delicate string hoppers so rice noodles that have been steamed
i'm just going to dip it in to this gravy so we can get a taste of it just drench it
um you get hit with chilli on the top layer and then the taste of that chicken comes through so
all i had was just the gravy and there was this beautiful beautiful kick of chicken
flavour the chicken is falling off the bone it looks really beautiful and
tender i love meat on the bone retains so much flavor
and tenderness and moistness in the meat wow
the string hoppers are very delicate they're soft they're the perfect vessel for that that gravy
i'm going to try a bit of this sambal so fresh coconut chilli onion i can see some curry leaves
um stunning curry flavour it's got a fiery kick there's a lot of chilli in there
this meal is so flavorsome i can't wait to dig into this chicken curry a little bit more
one of the joys of eating here in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland is that it can really transport you back
to travel so we've been to sri lanka and the first meal we ever had when we landed in sri lanka was
kottu roti and that was so true to form that one we've just eaten that it just took me back i could
picture it i could smell it being there and i love that about the amount of diversity we have here
in Auckland but the next bit of diversity we're gonna have is south african food we've never been
to south africa so this one is totally new to us so we're gonna have some south african fast food
hi there we've come to Klasiq kitchen to eat a south african favorite it's called
bunny chow or bunny and essentially what it is is a hollowed out loaf of white bread
that's filled to the brim with curry this will be the first time either
of us have ever eaten bunny chow and i can't wait to get into it
we've just been watching the bunny chow getting made so a loaf of bread has been
cut in half we've opted for the crust and then it's just been filled with this aromatic
mutton curry so there was potatoes in there mutton on the bone and then
the hollowed out bit of the white bread has been plopped on top cannot wait to eat this
oh this is my kind of dish how good does it look so we've got this fluffy hollowed out
bread on the top and the the loaf of bread the bread bowl essentially is just soaking up all of
that curry sauce the curry sauce or curry gravy is so aromatic i can see tomatoes a ton of spice in
there curry leaves i think there's a big chunk of potato and then mutton on the bone the best way to
have it i reckon because it retains its tenderness and juiciness so this is a dish that originated in
durban in south africa with the indian community and the indian labourers who came over to work in
south africa in the sugarcane plantations they say that they needed a way to carry their curry
for lunch to work and loaves of bread were what was easiest to get so they would hollow out the
loaf of bread stick their beans in and take it to work and since then it's just become a national
staple
holy moly that is epic wow the curry it's not overly fiery so not overly spicy and chilli heat
it's got this really subtle burn you can taste so many spices it's aromatic that mutton is so tender
and just melts in your mouth and that white bread is the perfect vessel for that gravy oh man
that's beautiful we've also been given a carrot salad which is
a really popular salad in south african cuisine it's just vinegar onion carrot i think a little
bit of chilli and that will cut through the richness of this mutton curry bread bowl oh man
this is a real communal meal in south africa so i love that it's in a bread bowl so
it gets put in the middle everyone can dive in with their hands ripping apart that bowl
grabbing your favorite bits before someone else gets in i mean it's it's the joy of food sitting
around enjoying great food together and something like this which is an entirety the vessel
everything about it is edible it's so lovely when you can eat together so it's really nice
both Sheena and i being able to just rip into this bread bowl and enjoy this bunny chow
loved filming this video i mean so much diversity along this strip and it's so
neat to have something brand new to both of us to end this video with absolutely loved filming this
one we hope you've enjoyed it hit subscribe drop a comment down below if you've enjoyed the video
give us a thumbs up and there is more coming because this strip has so much more to offer
so there are more videos coming from here in Panmure to show you how good this street is for food