ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
An Indian-cum-Thai pop-up has work to do to fit in with its culinary neighbours.
OCEAN AND A ROCK 551 Richmond Rd Grey Lynn oceanandarock.com Ph: 021 2631444
How to make a million dollars: the old line is that you get two million dollars and start a restaurant, t hough I doubt that the boys behind Ocean and a Rock were a couple of mill in the hole when they opened the doors last month. Their sis the second pop-up in the god-awful, echoing, disjointed space that in the daytime isJa fa, once the hippest joint in Grey Lynn but ... well, not now.
As I was paying the bill, one of t he owners, who had not identified me, asked if everything was okay. I smiled vaguely. “Any suggestions?” he persisted, plainly aching for feedback .“It was fine ,” I said, through gritted teeth.
It goes against the grain to keep silent but, in fact, it’ s hard to lay into this place because it’ s not outstanding enough to dislike, if you know what I mean. That explains t he star rating above, which should be read not as a lashing but as a precise mathematical expression.
The co-owners, two young and keen Indian chaps, have a generic sort of hospo background, a bit thin, perhaps, as the basis for setting upon their own account, but in a city where second- rate hamburgers are t he new nouvelle cuisine, success attends on t he oddest of ventures.
Ocean and a Rock takes its name from a pretty song in 5/4 by an Irish woman( it plays over and over on its website; I wonder if she knows) but the food adds principally Indian and Thai grace notes to bistro standards. I didn’t try t he Turkish margherita bites, so I can’t report on what was Turkish about buffalo mozzarella, tomato and basil, but the garbanzo salsa, which seemed to be made of adzuki beans, not chickpeas, was more like a garnish than a dish, and remarkably free of zing for something styling itself a salsa.
Mo mo( goat-mince dumplings ), a staple in Nepal and many gastronomic wastelands further north, were nice enough—although the “tomato coriander chutney” they came with tasted like tin ned passata and chilli. I think the same stuff was smeared across t he board on which were arranged four stuffed mushrooms t hat virtually screamed catering school.
By far the most interesting dish was a Thai-inflected risotto( curry paste and coconut milk ), accompanied by Korean-style fiery fermented cabbage. It certainly succeeded better than a chicken ramen, which piled crunchy pieces of leg meat and bean sprouts into a bowl with an unmanageably large chunk ofbo kc hoy. Like much else, t here was nothing much wrong with it, but it cost twice as much as, and was not noticeably better than, a food-hall dish.
“Textures of lychee” seemed a slightly highfalutin name for dried and fresh fruit alongside a delicate pan na cotta, but it was better than discs of sweetened, dried paneer that tasted like sugary chalk.
In apart of town where there is excellent eating close by in all directions, this place has a bit of work to do to make a mark.