New Concept Buffet & Hotpot (North Shore City, New Zealand)

Most Chinese restaurants don’t give much importance on branding or even any visual presentation and most of them just cook or serve great food and that’s it, no frills. New Concept Buffet & Hotpot is one of those restaurants, located in the near the Northcote shops in the North Shore passing by this place will never entice you into going inside, the place is quite plain and really simple even I will not dare go in. Luckily one of my friends introduced me to this place and this was the second time I dined in here.

When you go inside the premises you will see lots of plates on the sides filled with raw seafood, meat, vegetables, different types of seafood balls, cooked food, warm food, drinks and sauces. There are lots of choices.

In the seafood area alone there are at least 8 different types of seafood from crab legs, squid, cuttlefish, fish fillets, salmon wings and head, prawns and mussels to name some. In this area you will also find meats like pork, beef and chicken, tofu, different kinds of mushrooms and fungus. There are also different types of green leafy vegetables many of them I can’t spell or even pronounce the names of.

On the inner section you will find different cooked cold food from vegetables, offal, savoury pancakes, fruits and some Asian desserts. Then just going further to the left there are different types of fish/seafood balls and I suggest you try them all especially if you don’t usually have them. Most of their fish/seafood balls are not the simple round ones, what they serve here most have fillings inside from fish roe, mushrooms and minced meat to name some. There are also a selection of root crops like lotus roots and sweet potatoes.

The last section would is a selection of 8 hot dishes like noodles, mussels, fried chicken and other popular Chinese dishes like sweet and sour pork.

The usual drill in places like this is that they ask if you want normal broth or spicy broth but you can have both where they give you a special pot that has a divider in the middle. While they are pouring the broth and turning on the heat you can now grab as many as you like as long as you finish them. Since it was a seafood buffet I grabbed mostly seafood, I took a lot of salmon fins, I love this part, its meaty and fatty, also had some prawns, fish and crabs. I had the spicy part of the pot while my two lovely ladies got the normal one. The daughter grabbed a lot of seafood balls and thanks to her I got introduced with lots of different ones I haven’t tried yet.

I guess we all went to refill our plates for 3 times and it was really satisfying, mostly all protein, just a few carbs and the good part it’s all seafood, tofu, mushrooms and vegetables. The room for dessert was not that much so we just had some fruits as well as Dousha Guo Bing (we love this stuff). Too bad there were no more room left for the drinks and even this was a part of the buffet and also have lots of options to choose from.

So if you are craving for seafood and not fussed to cook at home or not picky about the location or how a place looks like then this is an inexpensive place for you to go. For just $25 a head you can devour as many sea creatures you want in one sitting.

New Concept Buffet & Hotpot
Address: 12 Kilham Avenue, Northcote, Auckland
Phone: +64 9 480 6573