Lotus Garden Restaurant (North Shore City, New Zealand)
Lately there has been a massive surge of new restaurants in Corinthian Place in Albany, not even a year ago when we started dining in here there were just one row of food shops but now this place became really vibrant and busy. We pass by this location on a regular basis and witnessed its development, since then we never tried the restaurants up until now.
We don’t know what to expect, we did not know any of the restaurants either so we came in here without any booking. As we parked it was a challenge, there are a lot of fancy cars everywhere, a sign that there are a lot of Asians dining in. We then checked out each place, most of them were fully booked and we got lucky there was one place with a free seating left, the Lotus Garden Restaurant. Most if not all of the restaurants here are Chinese so it’s a no brainer what to pick specially if you don’t know that regional varieties they offer, for us we got no choice as there is no place to sit.
Like any typical Chinese place, furnishings are made of heavy wood, tea pots everywhere, lots of Lazy Suzanne’s in bigger tables and the menu are bi-lingual. With a good number of offerings on hand, this was hard for me, as most of you know I hate 4-page menus with a very small font size to fit in all of the restaurants offering. It was hard to order so just randomly chose one and picked on of my favourite on another Chinese restaurant that I liked.
First was the Sautéed Potato, Green Pepper and Eggplant (NZ$18.80), which I did not expect to look like this, chunky. Surprisingly it was good, very soft inside and crispy chewy outside, seasoned really well, I got addicted nibbling on them.
And for the other one I got some Braised Pork with Preserved Vegetable in Soy Sauce (NZ$25.80), like I said I liked this dish from another restaurant, here is not that great, though it tastes similar the pork is not fork tender enough like the one in Golden Century Restaurant, still managed to finish it though. These two dishes definitely were enjoyed with a good amount of rice and tea.
So how was it? Mixed emotions dishes are definitely tasty, I loved the Sautéed Potato, Green Pepper and Eggplant which was really unexpected. Pork was just OK, there was just something better than what they offer. During our visit service was quite slow, I think we waited for around 30 minutes, this might be because they don’t have a ready braised pork to use on our dish, which also explains why it’s not fork tender. I will give it a next shot as they have a lot of good options on that menu, but next time I will already choose what I want to order beforehand.
Lotus Garden Restaurant (芙蓉居)
Address: 12/21-23 Corinthian Dr, Albany, Auckland 0632, New Zealand
Phone: +649 448 5859
