Tang's Soup, Royal Oak

I have been to this little cafe close to my place for 2 times and it was a great find because this place is really small but cosy,and the best thing about it is that parking spots are aplenty which is rather rare in Auckland central.

I pass by this cafe when commuting to and from work everyday and only until recently that I gave it a thought. From the outside, it looks really dingy, located amongst a small stretch of shops in a run down building.


The shop is of the size of an average living room of an apartment but it is very neat and clean with a few round marble tables and chairs.
Their specialty is double-boiled soups and some special Cantonese style desserts like Egg Pudding , Milk Pudding and Tong Sui. Since it was a very hot afternoon, we decided not to order any soups and just settle for some simple lunch.


Special marinated chicken feet. I don't eat chicken feet but my friends adore them and according to them this dish is only average because they prefer the chicken feet softer but the taste is quite good. I won't know because I only picked out some carrot shreds.

Steamed rice with preserved meat .This is a simple but appetizing dish served in a small wooden barrel. The meat are steamed on top of white rice and cabbage, giving the rice and cabbage a nice taste.

Steamed pork ribs with black beans on rice

This dish is alright but could have been better if there were more black beans.

Steamed spicy chicken and pork ribs on rice

I enjoyed this dish the most because of the nice fragrant spicy sauce and the succulent chicken meat. Since we ordered mostly rice dishes, at least this one is much more interesting than the others.

Steamed pork with shrimp paste on rice noodles

This is my first time trying the chinese 'belacan' , the shrimp paste. It tastes quite fishy but not as fishy as belacan....tastes more like salted fish. The pork is really tender and tastes good with the shrimp paste but maybe I am so used to eating the rice noodles (chee cheong fun) with sweet sauce in KL, it takes a little more effort for me to comprehend this.

We were quite full after all the food but S would order desserts every time they are offered. So he ordered a Egg Pudding and loved it.

The egg pudding is really smooth and sweetness is just right

Look at how smooth it is inside!!

It was a lovely lunch outing but I personally prefer to come here at night or on cooler days so that I can have the soups.

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Jade Terrace Restaurant, Howick

Went for a dinner last week to send off friends who are going home to HK for 2 months . Wish I was the one going off for a holiday now instead, anyways, we decided to go for lobsters and headed to Jade Terrace that evening.

Seafood Fatt Putt...I would say that this dish is only average because we were expecting the basket to be made of yam but instead, it was made with fried egg noodles. It's still pretty good but is still not as good as it would be with yam because once the noodles soften, it just seem to me like fried seafood egg noddles.

Egg tofu with seafood and fish roe

Sorry for the blur photos....it's difficult to make a good shot with all the monkeys at our table who are immensely impatient with sparing me some time to take a photo that touched our table. I have to fend off some oncoming chopsticks before I can at least take a photo of each dish.

Eight lobsters for seven people....aaahhh.....pure indulgence!

Actually, I think these are crayfishes, the smaller cousins of lobster as these fellas look smaller but the waitress told us they are 'lobsters' ( loong har).....oh well....they are still from the same family so as long as they are yummy....

These little yummy fellas are steamed with garlic and chinese cooking wine on a bed of mung bean noodles ( Fun Si) . It's really fresh but it could have been better if the chef would have been a little less generous with the cooking wine. I had only one and couldn't even swallow another gulp of water anymore. Now I regret that we've ordered so many dishes too.Fried Kang Kung with fermented tofu ( Fu Yu)

Steamed Orange Roughy Fish with Mui Choy

The fish is the last to arrive but still was not neglected because it was really fresh and tastes remarkably good. The fish we got was pretty big....weighing at least 2 kgs. The orange roughy fish is one that I have seen many times at the seasfood market but never thought of trying it because the fish is very huge and ugly and its body looks like some decomposed body but having tried this dish, it will totally change my perception of it. I will definitely buy it the next time I see one again.

Overall, we had an enjoyable evening of food but our night out was short-lived because of the deafening noise from another function in the restaurant. The food here is good but not great but I would say we good a good deal for our money's worth....the bill came out to be a little below NZD 300, pretty good deal.

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