Dominion Road is one of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland's go-to spots to experience traditional cuisines
from all around the world today we're going behind the scenes of a Dominion Road stalwart
which has been dishing up home-style indian snacks and meals for over 20 years
we discover a restaurant specialising in Hunan cuisine from southern China
and dive into the region's most famous dishes like stinky tofu and braised pork belly before
taking you into the kitchen of a wood-fired pizza joint for some delicious Neapolitan style pizza
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
today's video is another exploration of diversity along Dominion Road we love eating on this strip
so we're making a 5 part series of the best food on Dominion Road we're kicking off this video
with a stalwart of Dominion Road we're eating at Ras Vatika a place which serves up amazing
Indian food and it's been around for over 20 years it's gonna be a good one so it's
Indian we're having some Italian and we're also having some Chinese oh let's get eating
I'm with Kailash Aunty who is the owner operator of Ras Vatika she has owned this place for 21 years
and she's making up our dishes so we've ordered some chaat we've
got a dosa on the way we've got some thali and everything is made in house
Kailash Aunty is giving me a roti rolling lesson
I struggle making roti at home just like that you're doing light nicely
yeah like so just pick one so you can do it like that okay so nice and
Kailash Aunty's mother is critiquing my work and I don't think it passes muster
it's really neat to be back in the kitchen the roti is on the go now so on the hot plate
we've spent a lot of time in India so about six months in total we've spent in India so we have
a great passion and love for indian cuisine there's some very good indian food here in
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland Ras Vatika is right at the top of our list for very traditional flavours
a great spread of menu too a very big menu with many different options and they do
everything well wow look at that the roti's going straight over the hot flame
puffing right up so neat being in the kitchen and seeing our food come together
the south indian classic the dosa is on the go so a fermented rice and lentil
batter has been popped on the hot plate now we're just waiting for it to crisp up
how's that rapid action in the kitchen seeing that all come together super special it's time to eat
we've got this huge Indian feast in front of us so as Thomas was saying before Ras Vatika specialises
in Indian food from all around India so from the south of India we've got this dosa which is a
fermented rice and lentil pancake got some sambar some vegetable stew coconut chutney to go with it
in the front here we've got one of my favorite chaat which are indian snacks
dahi puri yogurt chutneys crispy things delicious and then this here is a thali so it's a meal made
up of rice there's some roti there's a papadam there's some vegetable curries lentil curries
and some pickle
i'm going to dive into the chaat to start with this is vegetarian only so there's no meat on this table
and chaat when you're in India you cannot say no just incredible flavours
so it's essentially like a little bread puff so it's crispy it's a little ball
which gets a hole put in it there's some potato mixture in there
there's tamarind and date chutney there's sev which is the chickpea noodle on top coriander little bit of spice some yogurt
wow it's a burst of flavour that takes you straight to the streets of India standing
there having this fresh burst fresh from the yogurt a little bit of spice crunch from the
from the puri and from the sev all over the top
far out tanginess from the date and tamarind chutney man alive that's so good oh
i want to tackle this dosa look how crispy it is whoa it is paper thin as well and
Kailash Aunty sprinkled some garam masala and also some chili in the middle
so it's a beautiful colour so I've just got a little bit of that dip it in the sambar
i might just take a little bit of this potato mixture too
holy moly the dosas here are insane super thin super crispy a beautiful flavour i love that
creamy potato mixture man that is good
the roti is calling out my name and it was so cool getting that impromptu lesson
uh from the aunties they were so pro at rolling out the dough and
i loved how she finished it off with a pat of butter a big pat of butter on each roti
the roti is beautiful it's got such a lovely texture it's got a little bit of chew i
dipped it into the pea and eggplant curry beautiful flavours a little bit spicy but not
overwhelming this oh wow this is a thing of beauty and it tastes so good
this place has been here for 21 years and so there's that essence of time in all this food it's perfected it's high
quality it's very affordable it's a lovely place it's like going to someone's home the staff are
amazing very welcoming the food tastes like home cooking it's a special restaurant oh and the food
we're going for some Hunan cuisine now so that's from southern China and i know we've harped on
about it a lot in this series so this is a 5 part series the diversity i mean Dominion Road
has so much different and incredible food to eat so this is video 5 of that five part series
so if you've not seen the rest of the videos go and check them out after you've watched this one
it's been a joy to film there's so much diversity and so many places to enjoy on
Dominion Road it's very well known for its Chinese food and its dumplings but it is
so much more than that we love eating along Dominion Road when we've got the camera
and also when we don't have the camera we come here often so much good food
Hunan cuisine is known for its strong flavours so sour spicy savoury and we're going to order
a bunch of dishes but i'm most excited about this stinky tofu so Hunan is known for its stinky tofu
there's some intense stir fry action going on
i believe this is our smoked pork and radish dish
smoke fire flames i love being in these kitchens getting to show you how these dishes come together
what beats being in the kitchen fire everywhere smoke everywhere
what a way to get you hungry for your food and man the smells are good in here but
speaking of smells i'm standing right by the little pile of stinky tofu so
it does live up to its name a little bit it has a pretty pungent smell i like the smell some people
hate it it's some people think it has a bit of a sewerage-y smell i think it smells delicious but
beyond anything it tastes absolutely incredible so i can't wait to have it here and far out
watching all of this taking place this is a really neat kitchen to get some access to
two of the dishes have arrived at the table we've ordered three dishes today now they're a bit of a
strange collection of dishes i must say probably not what you'd order normally to go together at
this restaurant but there's a reason we've done it and that's because they are regional
specialties in Hunan and we wanted to have those regional specialties so on the table so far is a
smoked pork belly dish with radish that's gone in the wok strong smoky smell to it smoked meats
heavily used in Hunan so that's why we've got that dish we've got this braised pork dish with
bao around the outside so steamed buns and this is Chairman Mao's braised pork dish and he didn't
like soy sauce so this dish was created by a chef to not have soy sauce in it which i think is very
interesting let's just get some of that pork straight into a bao some of that nice sauce oh
sweet salty juicy pork oh it's really good to have that in a
in a bao actually it's a really good way to eat it
oh man that is ridiculously moreish
man that is good oh the stinky tofu is here yum thank you xie xie
this is the famous stinky tofu a dish i absolutely love and this version is black which is super neat
and it doesn't really have a stinky smell anymore so stinky smell in the kitchen now it doesn't it's just
no it's lost a lot of it's it's stench wow it looks good
okay diving into that stinky tofu so it's stinky tofu because it's fermented so that's where it
gets this stench from and you'll find it in many different regions but in Hunan
it's famous because one is black and two it's spicy so stuffed with chilli spring onion garlic
so it's lost its smell in cooking that that quite pungent stench that it gets but it hasn't lost
it in its flavour but it's not a bad flavour it's a beautiful flavour it coats your mouth
good hit of spice from all the chillies in there some freshness from the other stuffed
things the garlic and the coriander whoa that is very good stinky tofu i adore that flavour oh
that takes me right back to being on the streets of places like Taiwan and having stinky tofu
it's brilliant how you can sample cuisines from all around China on Dominion Road the
food in China is very regional and Dominion Road offers the opportunity to sample so
many different types of Chinese food it's awesome so i am going to tuck into this smoked pork dish
so strips of smoked pork belly tons of radish lots of spice
in the form of chilli
that tastes like bacon stunning a great heavy smoky flavor it's very spicy with
all of that chilli in there and then the the radish is quite crispy oh that's good
there are literally thousands of dishes to try on this one strip of Dominion Road so today we've had
Hunan cuisine we've eaten Indian cuisine and now we're off for some pizza
hi
we're in the kitchen at Pizzeria Rosso Pomodoro on Dominion Road we're with Ankur who is the owner
operator of this joint and he's making us some Neapolitan style pizzas and check out this oven
the heat coming off of this thing it's about 400 degrees in there wood fired these pizzas
we've ordered two a margherita and a piccante are going straight in there for a couple of
minutes
the pizzas were in there for a maximum of two minutes so they've already come out of the oven
we've ordered a picante so a spicy salami one and a margherita
how's this true wood-fired pizza a cold beer what could be better
my absolute go-to all-time favourite the margarita so very simple tomato sauce
mozzarella basil some fresh basil at the end and the picante for a bit of a spice
kick that is loaded with spicy salami some chilli flakes to round it off at the end
and look at this beautiful dough i mean it's just bubbled up in that oven like
Sheena said it's in there so quick because it's so hot four or five hundred degrees celsius oh
i mean who doesn't love pizza i sure love it and that is really good chewy base
but not um not too dense at all nice and light but got that perfect chew that you want
cheese is loaded on there the tomatoes got a nice punch
cold beer oh
almost got away on me
it's a good margarita oh super tasty a little bit of those burnt edges almost they're not
burnt but they're just slightly blackened and you get that flavour through the mouthful which i
really like in a pizza i'm all about a spicy topping so we've got
salami chilli flakes buffalo mozzarella and also some capsicum on there
oh that's good the salami is shaved very thin so it's super easy to eat has a great
flavour i just love the chilli on there it adds a real punch and like Thomas said this
base is so fluffy it's got a great chew man this is really good
what a great way to wrap up this five video series along this one strip of road here in Tāmaki Makaurau
Auckland Dominion Road just in the strip we've filmed has 108 restaurants that is mind-blowing and
the diversity is mind-blowing too and for me it's like a little party pizza and beers to celebrate
finishing filming this entire series but we hope you've watched all of the videos
in the series and enjoyed them if you haven't go back check them out because we've uncovered some
absolute gems must eat places thank you for watching this one enjoy the rest of the videos if
you haven't seen them chuck a comment down below hit that thumbs up button thank you very much for
watching