Monsoon Poon

Monsoon Poon has been in that corner of Auckland since I can remember. Known for the fusion South Eastern flavours, I figured it should be a safe option for a multi-cultural group. Auckland is going through that no reservations trend, so a place that lets me plant my name on 8 seats deserves a tentative round of applause.

They have a massive cocktail list, with $6 cocktail of the week from 4-6pm. Not bad at all for Auckland’s sky high cocktail prices.We ordered Ping’s crispy skin chicken wings to nibble on. True to its name, it had a nice crunch but it lacked in the flavour department. It was also a bit pricy at $13 for a few chicken wings…snatched up in seconds by our unabashed diners.
I ordered the Shaking Beef (Vietnamese style seared beef), mainly because I did a class at Sachie’s Kitchen with TriBeCa’s Hayden McMillan and it was surprisingly easy and fun to make.

The first few mouthfuls were soo good. I always get the coconut rice over jasmine or plain – it’s just so much better with curries and sauces. After a while, the carb monster in me had finished my rice and I was only a third through the beef. With no rice, it was just WAY too salty. The beef was nicely seared and flavoured through and through, and it would have been nice itself without the accompanying sauce.
I must have been high on coconut rice, because I even had a couple of mouthfuls of the “Firecracker Chicken” – chilli breaded chicken with Malaysian chilli sambal. It looks lethal but to my surprise I enjoyed the burn. It tasty without being lip and tongue numbing.