Golden Tulip Malaysian Cuisine (North Shore City, New Zealand)

This is the last restaurant in this place that we haven’t tried yet (Yes we tried every place in this corner of Link Drive), we always planned to dine in here but once we arrive its either Hansan or Naritas that hijacks the idea since they were are out favourites in this place. During our last visit here, I told to myself it has to be done, since it was our last days in visiting North Shore regularly as we moved out West, hence we came here after we finished all our last bit of renovation work at our old home. As we parked, again that little conscience at the back of my head told me to either choose one of my old favourites but I fought that out to give these guys a try, and yes, luckily, we did.

Usually when we dine in there are three of us, but my daughter is so grown up now, she started part time work during weekends, hence this time it was just the two of us and probably that will be mostly the case in the future. As mentioned, this was our final visit to our old home, that last bits of renovation work was a lot, so we came in quite late, probably we came in around 2:30 PM, and like the usual, we were really hungry and tired.

Usually when we dine in on a new place we usually take our time looking at the menu to see what they had on offer, but this time that was not the case, we ordered the ones we feel we liked first and with many Malaysian restaurants cereal prawns was always one of our first choices. They call it here Nestum Prawns (NZ$19.50), why? Well Nestum is a brand of cereal in Malaysia but it’s not your usual cereal, this one is more like oatmeal but made with flour, corn grits, rice flour and milk. Nestum Prawns is made by stir frying these prawns with Nestum cereal until they are toasted. Its sweet, its creamy, its crunchy and its delicious specially when it absorbs all that oil and flavour from the prawns. Their serving size was good, probably there were around 6 to 8 large pieces of prawns on it (can’t exactly remember), the prawn head was so crispy so its edible and it does not have those sharp edges.

We paired that with the Oyster Oil Vegetables (NZ$9.50), a simple blanched green served with oyster sauce and sesame oil topped with toasted garlic. Orders came quick and as we devour these two delicious dishes, I felt it won’t be enough specially with our situation so we also ordered some Lobak Roll (NZ$9.50), which is basically meat rolls flavoured with Chinese five spice then wrapped with fresh bean curd sheets then deep fried, its nearly similar to the Filipino kikiam but instead of crab meat inside, pork is used. This too was good, outer bits was crispy and the meat inside was soft and very tasty. This order came in quick as well, I guess they know we were tired.

I am glad we did try this place; they have something to offer here, their dishes were good, all were very tasty and freshly cooked. Now I can’t wait to give it another go, probably spend more time thinking what to order like their Bak Kut Teh, Kam Heong Chicken or Mummy Chicken.

Golden Tulip Malaysian Cuisine
Address: 31D Link Drive, Wairau Valley, Auckland 0627, New Zealand
Phone: +649 442 5018