DAIKOKU
Open the doors to Daikoku’s North Shore restaurant and you’ll be greeted by a screen showing chef Masaru Morita wielding a giant blade as he chops chunks from a towering block of ice. It’s mesmerising.
Walk through the restaurant and into the kitchen, however, and Morita is being a little more delicate.
He’s testing the three dishes Daikoku will be serving at the Curious Food Festival: a teppanyaki prawn and paua plate with escargot butter ($12), a scotch fillet with wasabi salsa ($10), and a salmon slider served with pesto in a charcoal bun ($8).
He’s making all three at once, gently frying the salmon, then searing the beef and frying up veges separately, preparing serving plates with sauces and parsley, then delicately plating each one up to perfection.
Weekend’s surprised to learn we’re not being served snails again: that “escargot butter” is a term used to describe butter infused with garlic and herbs, then used on steak. Morita cuts thick slices, places them over the paua then melts them with a blow torch. Cut into four, they’re chewy and packed full of flavour.
The beef is up next, a tender, melty cut of steak slightly seared but left rare, served with Daikoku’s inhouse wasabi salsa. Weekend quickly falls in love with that salsa: Morita explains it’s a 50-50 mix of wasabi and jalapenos, and it’s delicious and versatile.
We chase that with the salmon slider, and it’s our favourite dish yet: warm, delicate pieces of salmon smeared in pesto nestled between a soft charcoal bun. The flowers placed in a perfect arrangement around the plate prove Morita can be gentle when he needs to be.
Daikoku, 156 Hurstmere Rd, daikoku.co.nz