NEON JUNGLE

Kim Knight encounters an eatery where the prices are as wild as the customers

We had entered an alternative universe where time had no meaning and the customers who had arrived for 5.30pm bookings looked ready for a 3am dance floor.

Recently, an Australian restaurant critic was cancelled for commenting on a waitperson’s appearance. This is not an invitation for Canvas readers to do the same. I cannot, in fact, recall what the servers at Jungle 8 wore — I was so mesmerised by my fellow diners.

If you are middle aged and wondering what Auckland’s 20-somethings are eating, drinking (and, yes, wearing) then charge your phone and hit this neon den where you scan a QR code to order and everything from a four-shot round of housemade pineapple soju to two seared lamb rump skewers will cost you $8.88.

You’ve read something like this before, right? Jungle 8 is the central city cousin to Ponsonby’s Lucky 8.

Situated in the back of the Elliott St stables, in the former Besos Latinos, the new restaurant takes its flavour cues from Vietnam. The most expensive thing on the menu is an $88 shared “Jungle Phozilla” — a behemoth bowl of prawns, beef and onion — but you’ll also find bahn mi, sticky rice and papaya salad, et al. (You can order a mini bowl of just broth and noodles but I spent the entire time thinking about what wasn’t in it.)

Jungle 8 is a dark and windowless space, with giant lightboxes hanging from the roof, a neon tiger over the bar and an assorted menagerie of glowing beasts by the booths. We sat on comfortable stools under candyfloss pink and cop car blue lighting and contemplated the cocktail list. I had lowered my expectations in keeping with the price tags, but was spectacularly impressed by the spicy kick of the signature “Welcome to the Jungle” — spiced rum, triple sec, guava, lime and tabasco. (I can’t recommend the “khao san amnesia”. A pornstar martini by any other name, the alcohol burned and the passionfruit wasn’t sweet enough to soothe). Electronic ordering is a boon to places that want to feed people fast and often. I like clicking for detailed dish descriptions and, in a world where so many group decisions are already facilitated by screens, I don’t think it’s an impediment to conviviality. There is a potential future downside. Trendspotters predict that restaurants — like Uber and airlines — will eventually adopt dynamic pricing. Imagine how easy that will be with an ordering app. Steak with a side of surcharge?

Until that day, try the salt and pepper squid that is the crunchily battered and lip-smackingly peppered opposite of the bland, flaccid overpriced stuff served at too many gastropubs. Cool off with a serviceable papaya and beef salad or, perhaps, a single, succulent and almost certainly imported raw scallop sliced into four discs and spruiked with tobiko (lament, again, the decline of this local shellfishery).

I should have paid closer attention to those clickthrough descriptors — a beef ban xeo, for example, was a baby Vietnamese pancake stuffed with essentially the same meaty salad flavours we’d already sampled. Served taco-style and best demolished in a couple of bites (they’re kind of messy) I enjoyed their fresh, light flavour. (Given the price, I shouldn’t have been surprised the prawn version contained butterflied halves).

Crispy eggplant is everywhere now. Done well, it’s like eating a creme brulee without the sugar. Crack through the batter and sink into the creamy, cooked aubergine. Delicious.

The thing with eating under club lighting is you can’t always be sure what you’re eating. Xoi man was a scoop of sticky rice with a couple of nuggets of deliciously fatty sausage and — what on earth was that — round, soft, slightly fudgy and glowing like an alien landscape, I had to check my phone to make sense of the quail’s egg. Next to it, an unexpected dollop of the paté added an intriguing gaminess to the rice.

We finished with actual creme brulee; a perfectly sized pot of mango-infused cream that glowed like the dancefloor we would not be hitting. Jungle 8 s location and speed of service makes it a perfect “pre” restaurant ahead of the theatre, bars — or a downtown bus home to a couch.