THE EMPIRE
As many of you know I spent a week in New Plymouth for a filming gig
Needless to say I was very well looked after so there are some more food reviews coming, But in chronological order.
The Social Kitchen,
I didn’t really know what to expect with this, all I was told was good bbq meat and shared plates.
That was pretty accurate, Basically you can order some starters or you can dive into the shared plates of which there are many options. Idea being you order a plate of vege a plate ( or as many as you want) of meat for the table and keep ordering untill you can no longer walk..
We kicked off with some Chicken Liver Pate with flatbread ($15.90 ) and the Flaming Zany Zeus Halloumi, which was kind of a flaming cheese in a small saucepan ( $18.90 )
The Halloumi was interesting, we saw a lot of them going out, I wonder if that’s as much a gimmick thing to order as anything else, it was good but I kinda got the impression everyone gets it there. The Pate was great and came with plenty of flat bread to keep us going until our firecracker chicken turned up
The Firecracker Chicken.
Fuck me….
I don’t know if the chef was taking the piss or we got a special order but this was the hottest shit I’ve had in a long time, as I understand it this was not the norm and its typically milder than what we got.. but it was an expereince none the less..
Think of a nice crunchy coating on a sweet and sour pork in terms of texture levels. Now exchange sweet n sour for a good chicken wing sauce, and replace the pork with chicken. That’s basically was, boneless so you can just get into it. As I mentioned it was hardcore fucking hot but we still made it through, did require a short break outside to cool off but we fuckin did it.
and that was another starter…
however by this point we were pretty well fed so we decided it wasn’t a real vist if we didn’t try some of the great BBQ meat options. The waitress recommended the manawatu angus scotch fillet.
Manawatu angus scotch fillet
Cooked in a mirasa charcoal oven, it’s hard to find real BBQ these days, I assume due to the time it takes to prepare so getting real BBQ out is a real treat these days.
This beef was great, great bark great texture and a nice ring on it.. the only problem was I didn’t want to share but also didn’t want to be rude.. but by the time it showed up I was the only one still game to keep eating so I had the lions share and it was very very good.
So as you can imagine, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’d say its best to go with a decent group. at least 4 ideally 6 or more and order as much as possible and try as much as you can
100% recommend a visit if you are in the Taranaki!
10/10 would nom again – check out their website for their Menu and some pics of how cool the place is here – SOCIAL KITCHEN
special thanks to Matthew and Jasmine from PRIMO WIRELESS for hosting me while I was down!
Latest posts by Nic (see all)
- Ferrari F40 – shed build - December 26, 2024
- American eats good New Zealand food - November 28, 2024
- Tiny jetboat madness! - November 28, 2024
- Mad Mikes 5 Rotor hits the track! - November 28, 2024
