Receta Genta Japanese Izakaya (Auckland CBD, New Zealand)
There are tons of Japanese restaurants in Auckland and most of them are all good mostly because unlike other cuisines I notice they only employ their own nationals giving that authenticity on what they are serving. Though there are several establishments who pretends to be one, we rarely dine in there as we had bad experiences more specifically on dishes they offer like using jasmine rice or basmati in their sushi or donburi, using subpar quality wasabi and serving non sushi grade seafood these establishments in question from what we notice are mostly manned by other Asian denomination, not that I have something against them they just don’t take good care of the ingredients like the Japanese do. Luckily I can decipher what type of East Asian language they speak so when I hear something not Japanese I don’t dine in there.
Genta Japanese Izakaya is one of those restaurants that is primarily staffed by Japanese (at least from what I noticed), upon entering the premises like the usual Japanese restaurants you will be greeted in Japanese and someone will bang on the gong. We came in here at lunch and like any restaurants in the CBD it was busy. Upon seating we grabbed the menu and ordered.
First up was a simple noodle soup of Tempura udon ($8.90), basically udon noodles soup topped with crispy prawn tempura. It was good especially the broth, noodles were bouncy chewy and the size of the tempura prawns was just right.
Then we ordered some sides of steamed prawn dumpling ($7.90), for most this will look similar as everyone of us knows what a Chinese shumaiis, basically it’s a close relative also called Shūmai. Shūmai in Japan uses shrimps as its main ingredient, pork nor beef is rarely used if not and meat is usually ground to a paste as opposed to minced. Dumplings were good, perfectly cooked, it was tasty and juicy inside.
Finally we also grabbed some donburi and my choice for the rice topping this time is a crispy fried chicken cutlets with Japanese curry sauce. This was equally as good as the first two dishes where chicken is crispy and very juicy. The sauce goes well with the chicken as well as the freshly cooked rice.
For a quick lunch this was a good place to be, staff was great and the food was tasty. It’s not that expensive even though it is located in a prime spot in the city where it attracts a lot of tourists. Definitely will be back here in the future perhaps trying out their dinner and not on a busy lunch work time.
Genta Japanese Izakaya
Address: 8 Commerce Street, Auckland, 1010
Phone: +64 9-303 1588
Website: http://www.genta.co.nz
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