OUT THE GATE
We play favourites with Albert Cho, the man behind the cult Instagram account.
Why do you think food and dining out has become so popular? For a lot of people, dining out is more than just eating food you can’t cook at home. People pay $32 for a bowl of spaghetti and two meatballs at Coco’s Cantina not because it’s the best pasta in Auckland – dining out is a social thing.
Do you have a favourite café? Any follower of Eat Lit Food can answer this for me: Coffee Pen in Eden Terrace. The hot meals of the day like their mac and cheese and beef pot pies are like eating a home-cooked meal. The smashed peas and chicken sandwich is filled to the edge and they make the best cheesecakes and banoffee pie in town, as well as the best coffee. Owners Yasuji and Fumi have mastered all the key components of a great café – and they always listen to my problems and rants while I slowly eat my lunch.
And what’s your favourite restaurant? I have a few favourites but Ima Cuisine stands out from the rest. ‘Ima’ translates to ‘mum’ in Hebrew and Ima Cuisine really embodies that in its homely ambience, welcoming service and hearty food. Owner Yael really knows how to take care of her customers. I call her the Amy Winehouse of the dining scene in Auckland because she’s humble, spunky and her food is straight-up soul.
How about your favourite dish? That might be the hardest and rudest question someone could ask me, as my favourite changes every day depending on the day and my mood. I tend to make a beeline to offal and offcuts like pigs’ feet, tendons and gizzards if I see them on the menu. It’s more interesting than cuts like pork belly and chicken breast.
How do you take your coffee? I almost always have something sweet like a cake or doughnut with my coffee, so I just like to keep it black with nothing added to it. It’s quite strategic, really, because that bitterness from the black coffee cuts the sweetness of what I’m eating to keep me from getting all sugared out.
Who’s on your dream dining guest list? There’s a girl group in Korea called Blackpink and one of the members, Jennie Kim, used to live in New Zealand. I’m not sure if it’s because of her New Zealand history that I feel like meeting them is actually realistic, but I literally had a dream that they all came to New Zealand and asked for me to take them on a food tour. Do you ever dine alone? I have no choice but to dine alone sometimes and I don’t enjoy it. I don’t believe people who say it’s therapeutic – it’s something I’ll appreciate when I’m old and have just come out of a mid-life crisis. Right now I’m young, I like socialising and it feels almost selfish to eat something so good and not share it with your loved ones.
What’s the key to a good meal? Soul and salt. A meal needs to be made with some genuine care and thought, you can really tell when something is just tossed together. Also, everything needs salt, even cookies, and it boggles my mind how scared a lot of people are of adding a dash of it before sending dishes out to tables. To me, bland food is the worst food.