Love is in the air at Evil Genius
The Curious Kererū, our restaurant critic, is spreading its wings to uncover the best dining experiences Christchurch has to offer. This week, the Kererū reviews Evil Genius.
Valentine’s Day has been and gone, leaving behind one of the busiest nights for restaurants. However, real lovers know that romance is not confined to one day a year and as I’m often asked to recommend a restaurant for a romantic meal, let’s dish about the love language of dining out.
First, it is not about how expensive the restaurant is. If your measure of a good date is how much it cost, your relationship might have bigger issues than where to go for dinner. Sure, a fancier place is more likely to have attentive service and maybe more privacy but those don’t make or break a date.
I think the essential ingredients for a romantic meal are this: Does the restaurant make you feel relaxed, happy, open to sharing food and feelings, and give you plenty to talk about? Will it keep you from being one of those couples who stare at their phones rather than talking to each other?
By those standards, I’d like to nominate Evil Genius and its playful Asian fusion food in Ferrymead. First, consider the location. While Ferrymead might not be top of mind for romantic locations, Evil Genius sits on the edge of the estuary, making for a peaceful setting and a lovely view from the large outdoor area, ideally not at low tide.
Inside is all dark wood, low light and feathery spider plants and other greenery, all of which set an intimate mood. Then there is a menu that is designed for co-operation. As the menu states, “all of our dishes are designed for sharing. Each dish will come staggered, as it is ready. Our portions are generous for sharing plates.”
The menu also recommends beginning with three dishes for two people. We settled on ‘evil’ fried chicken, evil fried cauliflower, and a fungi hawker roll. Because we’re the kind of couple who can’t help ourselves, we added a starter of edamame with miso butter and shared a dessert of a chocolate miso tart.
It was a gorgeous summer evening and the joint was busy but once we were settled into our table, the host swung by with “Hello, my lovelies!” Love was in the air already – as was a delightful cross-breeze – and her casual but busy air set us at ease.
The first dish out was the fried cauli. After tasting it and mentally trying to identify all the flavours, I realised another key ingredient of love is going over and above. When your partner delivers more than you expected, you get a little hit of dopamine.
That’s the feeling I get from Evil Genius, where every dish is more surprising, more tasty and more inventive than I expected. Given that the main dishes are from $18 to $27, you also get much more sophisticated and well-executed food than you might expect. The kitchen at Evil Genius is tiny but mighty, and leverages the limited menu well.
Everyone serves fried cauliflower but I’d never seen it with a caramel sauce. Large florets of slightly crunchy cauliflower were drizzled with a coconut milky, sweet and spicy, peanut-buttery, dark Asian sauce that had been caramelised. The accompanying Asian slaw included pickled ginger that cut the sweetness and spice of the sauce, and we quickly declared it our new favourite.
That was until we tried the fungi hawker roll. This was a crispy, layered chewy roti served flat with a generous serving of adoboreduced sliced mushrooms layered with shelled edamame, pickles and microgreens topped with threads of saffron. The first bite was a revelation of textures.
The crunch of the crispy roti – my partner said you could hear the joy – gave way to its delicate chewiness and then the soft meatiness of the mushrooms and the snap of raw red cabbage filled my mouth. Because we were sharing, I reluctantly passed it back to my partner (love is also sacrifice).
We couldn’t set it back down in the bowl it came in as the mushroom juice had pooled in the bottom and would have rendered the roti soggy. In fairness, the menu did say hawker rolls were “best enjoyed one per person”, a useful piece of advice we had missed.
Evil fried chicken came with more Asian slaw, spiced orange sauce and chilli mayo. The mix of white and dark chicken pieces was juicy and well-crisped with a light batter, and the orange sauce was far removed from the cloying version of average Chinese takeaways.
Dessert looked so beautiful that getting full was no deterrent. The miso-infused chocolate tart was decorated with a dehydrated orange slice, edible nasturtium flowers and a mint leaf. The dark chocolate ganache sat on a malt biscuit crumb and was served with freeze-dried strawberries and a triple chocolate ice cream. The ice cream was rich and delicious and the strawberries were an excellent counterpoint to the slightly bitter chocolate in both taste and texture.
We pushed our chairs back and relished the breeze coming through the open door. All was good at our table because, as we all know, chocolate is also love.
Evil Genius is at 2/1091 Ferry Rd in Ferrymead.