Dos Amigos (Mission Bay, Auckland, New Zealand)

What we love living in New Zealand is the amazing work life balance, and we take it really seriously, that means our work preferences are really flexible in time and in some cases in location, if you want to go to your kids recital during office hours or pick them up in the afternoon, usually your work place will not question you specially when it comes to family affairs. If you want to work from vacation on another city, in most cases it’s not a problem too.

I myself work flexibly, where I choose to start at 7:30 so I finish at 4:00, that though is not a mandate but more of a schedule so people know when to expect you. In terms of annual leaves my work place gives me 4 weeks and 3 days of annual leave, in addition to 12 public holidays. My work also gives me an unlimited sick day, this means we don’t really count sick leaves. Plus, there are many other leaves that we can take like parental leave and volunteer day leave to name some. And when it comes to leave, what I notice is that they won’t call you or expect you to check emails, a leave is a leave period. Now add those benefits to the many places you can visit and countless activities you can do, then living here is really priceless.

Honestly, this is the only country where every weekend, I get to spend quality time with my family and/or friends and I really haven’t shown that on my blog since I started it, which is a shame. That is why recently I added stories of what we did during that weekend where I usually embed it on our restaurant reviews since most of our dine outs are paired with an activity in the morning. These activities can be either hiking, swimming, biking, kayaking or any other activities, and dining out just make sense after a strenuous activity.

Several weeks ago, what we did is SUP (Stand up paddle board) in Mission Bay, it was quite windy hence we ended up more as a Kneel Up paddle board becuase the waves are just too strong to stand up anyways we still had a lot of fun and wipe out of course. It was hard but it’s just because of the waves and winds, I remembered this was easy a year ago when we did a group version which was even harder, just imagine 6 on a stand-up paddle board, just one person that does not have the sense of balance will wipe you all off. After the activity, we go rinsed ourselves, there is a public shower nearby and after that our early dinner at Dos Amigos.

Located just along Tamaki Drive this has one of the best beach side locations. We came in around 3PM and our last food intake was at breakfast so we were quite hungry. We immediately ordered and grabbed several items:

Nachos Entree size (NZ$22.00), prepared with Corn chips covered with melted cheese, shaved red onion, black olives, jalapeños, topped with guacamole, Pico de Gallo & sour cream.

Fajita Carne Asada (NZ$40.00), served on a sizzling platter with sautéed onions and capsicum, accompanied with cheese, sour cream, guacamole, Pico de Gallo, shredded lettuce, red rice & beans with 4 warm flour tortillas

Tequila Lime Chicken (NZ$33.00), made with chicken breast marinated in House Reposado Tequila, grilled and topped spicy chilli jam, served over red rice and beans accompanied by a sweet corn and red pepper salsa.

We also had some Curly Fries (NZ$8.50), served with chipotle aioli & tomato sauce. This is non-negotiable for my wife and daughter since this thing is hard to find in New Zealand, and in the Philippines, this was one of their favourites.

For drinks we had some Sol Beer (NZ$9.00), Lemon Lime Bitters ($5.50) and some Ice Tea Arizona Peach (NZ$6.50).

The food was really great, the serving sizes were enormous and definitely had us filled up quite easily. Everything was spot on; it was all tasty really good. Nothing really stood out from the bunch as they are all equally good, it was well balanced. Price wise it was quite pricey than others but because it’s on a prime spot, it is totally understandable. It is a place with a very lively atmosphere, fun Latino decor, vibrant music and a good beach side location, add to that their extensive menu of Mexican dishes, it definitely will have something for everyone!

Dos Amigos
Address: 93 Tamaki Drive, Mission Bay, Auckland 1071, New Zealand
Phone: +649 528 7494
Website: https://dosamigos.co.nz/