Auckland

The holy food post has arrived, a fitting piece for my final entry. First up for discussion: the general food climate in Auckland.

If I had to pick one word to describe the food in Auckland (besides delicious) it would be Asian. There are a ton of Asian immigrants in the Auckland area, so basically every other restaurant featured cuisine from one country or another. Koreans specifically are absolutely killin’ it with the food. I had their delicacies twice, and both occasions were divine. The first time, we had Korean BBQ, where you pay a flat rate and you just get a bunch of raw meat/vegetables and cook them on these big frying pans at your table. There are a bunch of sauces so eating two giant stips of bacon can stay exciting the whole time. I’ve never been and it was super dope I would strongly recommend (as long as you are smart enough to cook your food properly no salmonella please :) ). The other place we went was just like a regular restaurant but I had some stellar short ribs, just straight up rib meat nuggets and some sauce which is exactly what I want all the time. All of it was way more authentic than I’ve had in America (I don’t live in a super heavy Korean area so that might just be me).

You know what else was super awesome? DUMPLINGS. Sumthin Dumplin, our favorite dumpling place, revolutionized my world. Of the five dumpling flavors, I always got the pork ones because I’m what’s called basic. They have different sauces though, and I did mix it up there. My favorite was probably the OG, which was like a chili type sauce with peanuts and mystery cubes that I think were like bacon but this is unconfirmed. It’s just the right amount of spicy and helps accent the pork well. My second favorite was probably the sriracha mayo which was a lil spicy but mostly creamy (one of my friends got this sauce every single time we went so it was definitely a banger). The third is the sesame sauce, which is also creamy, and sesame-y (wow). The last ranking, but still delicious, sauce is the garlic vinegar, mostly because one time I dropped a dumpling in it and it splashed out onto my phone because it’s a real liquid and not like a sauce sauce. I still really like its acidity though, and it not being drizzled on the ‘plings like the rest of the sauces makes sense because of its consistency. All of the sauces were super good though. I was never dissatisfied with Sumthin’s work and always left with zero regrets (except maybe not buying more dumplings). When I go back, that’s definitely the first place I’ll eat at.

Kiwis do have their own native foods, and while the Māori people (native Pacific islanders) have a lot of cool dishes, I didn’t really get to have any since things were cut short. So we’re gonna focus on what I did have, which was the more commercial/white people stuff. First up are milkshakes. Hold up, we have milkshakes in America. Indeed we do, but Kiwis refer to what we call a milkshake as a “thickshake”, while their version of a milkshake is essentially flavored milk. Low key I don’t like milk, but I loved NZ milkshakes, specifically the lime ones since they were kind of like a key lime pie moment. Another drink I loved was L&P soda, which was this lemon soda that tastes like lemon drops and sunshine and is not available in the US :).

Are there any bad foods? Not explicitly, but there’s one that stands out as...sus. It is: spaghetti bolognese and r i c e. When I first heard of this, I was offended both as an Italian and a human being. However, said spaghetti is canned and has zero structural integrity (and thus deserves no respect), so the rice actually helped to provide substance to the mushy “pasta”. So all in all it wasn’t bad, but I would take real pasta over this big brain combo any day. 

I think we’ll “wrap” it up with snack foods (haha please laugh). Everyone’s heard of TimTams. Everyone loves TimTams. If either of these statements does not apply to you, consider rectifying this issue. Now, I will say NZ TimTams are better than US ones. They have more flavors for sure, like honey and salted caramel (both slap hard). Another snack food that you definitely haven’t heard of is Pineapple Lumps. They’re just like pineapple flavored marshmallows with a chocolate coating, which sounds weird, but it works. Especially if you freeze them boys. Lastly, Hokey Pokey ice cream, my sweet angel. Honey ice cream with lil bits of honeycomb in it (the sugar candy honeycomb not the actual wax fest of real honeycomb). I read about it before I left for NZ, and I’m glad at least that got crossed off the to-do list, even if visiting the Alpine fault didn’t. Sadness over tectonic plate boundaries aside, I was more than satisfied with my New Zealand experience.

And that’s all for my hot takes. Thanks for reading y’all.

Just kidding I’m back because we can still write blog posts and I didn’t realize that. Anyway.

I’m sure you’re wondering what I actually did over in Auckland, since I was only able to write one post while I was there and it was about a weekend trip. Well, the wait is over, because I will now divulge the juicy details of my day-to-day life while I was abroad. 

Three days a week, I had a class at 9am. At my home university, this is fine for me since I would only need to get up at 8:40 to make it in time. But while I was abroad, a 9am class meant I had to get up at the lovely hour of 7:30. I stayed with a host family (I will talk about them later) who lived a forty minute bus ride from downtown Auckland. Since the buses left at seemingly random times (maybe there was a pattern but I never tried to figure it out), I had to be ready at like 7:45 and then leave the house when a bus was coming.

Now I’m going to take some time to shout out the Auckland Transport app. You just put in your destination and it would show you the nearest bus stops and what buses were arriving at them and when. I could just use the app to see when a bus to the stop by university was going to arrive and leave the house when I needed to. I’ve never used public transport on like a daily basis before but it was super easy to get around Auckland thanks to the app. So yeah I’d leave the house whenever and once I got on the bus I just chilled and listened to TMG podcast or something until my stop. 

A lot of people skipped class often, since all of the lectures are recorded, but I usually went since it’s easier for me to keep up with work and pay attention if I’m physically there (oof to that). I usually had a class before lunch and then a few hours off until 3 or 5 depending on the day (yes I had a class at 5pm and no I don’t recommend it). I typically bought lunch, either from the munchie mart, which had like hot chili buns or butter chicken for pretty cheap, or an actual establishment that made food. Usually one establishment in particular.

Her name was Sumthin’ Dumplin’, and she deserves all of my love and praise. Now I am planning a food post, but Sumthin’ Dumplin’ deserves to be talked about at least a little here. They had 5 varieties of dumplings that came in groups of either 6 or 10, and you could get one of the 5 sauces with them. I usually got 6 of the original dumplings, stuffed with pork and cabbage, with whatever sauce I felt like that day (sauce rankings will be discussed in the food post). They were so good that one friend and I got them multiple days in a row for lunch and the workers recognized us eventually, so we had that going for us. In all honesty, a typical day included the ‘plings for lunch.

In my free time between classes, I usually chilled in the library or the science center. I didn’t always have a lot of work to do so I watched a lot of Brooklyn 99 (it’s on NZ Netflix and I’ve never seen it before, okay). Obviously I would’ve done more fun things if I had known I would only be there for a month but that’s just how it is. I did do things some days though. One day we went to the art museum that’s right by campus, and another day I walked around the cemetery for an hour. There were a lot of times that I’d hang out with friends in a coffee shop as well, so it wasn’t ALL me watching things on my computer. And I did have homework to work on sometimes.

After my last class got out (which was at 6pm 3 days a week -_-), I usually went straight home (via bus) and chilled in my room until about 7, which is when my host sister started making dinner. I tried to help her but most days I ended up just talking with her while she cooked. Her name is Ashley, and she’s just starting her first year at the university. Both her and her mom love dance, and it’s my host mom’s return from work at the dance academy that meant it was time to eat dinner. My host dad works at the airport and had kinda weird hours, so he wasn’t always home for dinner. We watched TV while we ate, usually some weird reality TV show to make fun of, or the news about what was going on in the US, also to make fun of.

After cleaning up from dinner everyone just kinda chilled until bedtime, so I either hung out in my room or played with the cat (her name is Aela and I love her dearly) for a bit. And yeah that was my usual day which I thought not a lot happened during but this post is very long so I guess things happen. I did hang out with my friends some nights though I did not just Vibe every day, just so we’re clear. Anyway that’s it I’ll be back with a food post next time.