Hey guys! I recently went to the new restaurant in Stanmore Bay, Auckland, called Paprika. My dad and I went there for dinner to try it out and overall, it's a good restaurant, in my opinion.

FOOD
We're cheap and always budget and spend as little as possible haha so we ordered:

• 'Meat lovers tasting platter' (my dad really wanted to try it and eat a bit 'fancier' instead of only ordering two mains.) - $26. To me, it was very average but I'm not a fan of meat and try to avoid it. However, regardless of that, it's not worth it due to the price. The different sauces/seasonings do taste good but for the price, there wasn't much on the platter. (About two of each delicacy.)
• 'Malai Kofta: mild' (a vegetarian main dish and I wanted to try it because I've never heard of it before.) - $15. There was around 3 or 4 little balls (size of a meatball) in a bowl of curry. I really enjoyed it and would order it again. The curry is quite sweet and the balls only taste good when they are fully covered in the sauce. For the garnish, there is also almonds and raisins which weren't bad, I liked the extra texture.
• Lamb curry: medium (I forgot the name of the dish that my dad ordered but it was some sort of curry with lamb) - $15. It's a good proportion but not sure if it was enough to make my dad full haha (maybe that's why he wanted to order the platter as a safety measure.) 

From top to bottom: Lamb curry, meat platter, malai kofta

SERVICE
All the waiters there are lovely and from what I experienced and saw, they do their jobs well. I've got no complaints at all. Their service is also very fast and efficient.

Food took around 15 minutes (If I recall correctly) and it wasn't a quiet night either, there were around 6+ tables there also.

AMBIENCE 
The music that they play are nice, and like all typical restaurants, they light candles on the table - which I'm glad are real candles and not fake battery operated ones haha

OVERALL
I would recommend this restaurant, it's cheap compared to the other restaurants around the area (since the price for two people is around $60) and the food tastes good! But if you wanted something more formal and fancy with a three-course meal, this probably isn't the perfect restaurant for that.


I hope this helped you make your decision on whether or not to go try this restaurant out! If you've been here before, what did you order and do you recommend it?


Love,
Elaine

Hi guys, I guess my new years resolution of blogging more often (like once every 2 weeks or so) has failed miserably.. I just can't find anything too special and glamorous to blog about. However, there should hopefully be some interesting stuff happening. Anyways, last night, my dad, sister and I went to this Japanese buffet called Haru no Yume. It has a range of food but mainly sushi and sashimi. Time just flew by when we were there. We ended up staying for almost an hour and a half.

Firstly, let's talk about the decor and overall "feel" of the place. They have very pretty fairy lights which is the main theme in this restaurant. Or shall I say light source? Because the ceiling has no lights! They only have fairy lights and some long dangily light bulbs. (Not sure what the specific name for these are because I'm no light expert.) I actually don't even know how the restaurant felt so well lit but in reality, I was pretty dim now that I think about it and look back at the photos. Speaking of lighting though, each table also gets a lighted candle to set a nice, calming atmosphere. They also had some nice decor which consists of giant Japanese style umbrella. They also had some empty sake bottles on this divider wall that they have.

Secondly, ze food! Here's just some of the food that we ate:

This is Yvonne's plate and first thing she pigged out on was sushi and raw fish like salmon, tuna and king fish (I think?) because she wasn't able to eat them while pregnant.

More food

Sashimi plate that they bring over.

Beef that they light the bottom of the "stove" thing for you and the beef will begin to cook.

ICE CREAM. These are just like your typical soft serves. They have a machine for it where you just pour out yourself and I also added this fried thing on to substitute fries :3

I have one major highlight from the entire evening and that is that we originally thought that the beef (in the 2nd and 4th picture) was eaten as beef tataki (pretty much raw beef). But like after grabbing our first plate of food (including the beef), one of the waitress' told us that we're supposed to cook them! haha So embarrassing but hilarious because we were honestly so excited to eat beef tataki since it would have been my first time and also my dads. Even though the plates of raw beef (along with other food that were on the stove type display) were placed with the food that you just grab yourselves, it was misleading and caused us to think we just ate it as it is. This is actually bad and dangerous because not everyone would know that the food had to be taken by a waiter first and then served to the table. They should at least have a sign up. :P

The one downside to my experience is the fact that the website that they have, gives out wrong contact information. There was a cell phone number that they specifically said was where you text to make your booking so I texted that number. I didn't get any replies to the text so I guessed either that they don't reply to confirm bookings (which is weird) or that they didn't receive it. So I texted them again during the day that we were going (yesterday midday). I didn't receive any reply so I looked on their website to see what their shop's number is so I can directly call to confirm/make a booking. BUT every time we tried calling, it went to a voice message saying that they're busy. We tried at least 5 times as well and at different times! We called about every 30 minutes until we gave up. Even though no one ever confirmed our booking, we still went because we doubted that the restaurant will be fully booked with no spare tables anyways. And if it was full, we would've just went to another restaurant. When we arrived, they said that there was no booking made by us and it took them about 2 minutes to think and decide whether we'd get a table or not. I'm seriously dissapointed in the fact that the number to text to make a booking is incorrect because it is on their website and I'm sure lot's of other people have fallen for this too. But what I'm not sad about is the fact that we tried to call them so many times and they were too busy to pick up the phone even once.

Overall, I would go back to this restaurant but I don't want to be the one booking the table! haha Too much of a hassle.


Love,
Elaine