You may wonder what the tallest structure in Auckland has in store, for your tummy. For this post, I will share with you this very place, at Sky City Auckland. We arrived quite late into the night so we didn’t have many options available to us, but here are the two places that we had our dinners at.
The first place was Sammy’s Place, located on the ground level of the building. If you do get in from the main entrance of the building, you will see the hotel’s reception on the right hand side just in front of you. If you turn left, you will see escalators, but if you walk pass them, you will see Sammy’s Place, which is a bit tucked in under the escalators. This is neither a restaurant nor a bar, but what they describe themselves as a “pub experience”. I agree, since this place is quite cozy, with the dimmed lights and all.
This place is great in the sense that they have an “all day menu”, so regardless of when you arrive, you can still get something decent other than sandwiches or kebabs. The four of us all ordered different things, so that’s even better when it comes to describing the menu to you guys. I’m the least healthy one and I usually don’t watch out for what I eat - especially on holidays - so I went for a burger, with chips of course. The burger had a rich, thick BBQ sauce which was delicious, and you could actually see it dripping from my burger on the photo. It also had some really nice smoked cheese and some bacon between the buns. Although people usually affiliate burgers will junk food, I really can’t understand why, since it’s essentially a sandwich, but it just looks different with a difference in ingredients. Anyhow, they have other burgers on the menu, and they’re all the same price!
Moving on, my other friend had gone for an Italian dish in fettuccine with seafood in a cream sauce. This is a very simple Italian dish which was done very nicely. The cream sauce was delicious and the seafood in shrimps and mussels were decent. Unless you’re dining in a real top notch restaurant or eating by the sea, the seafood quality with most likely be the same, so we judged it by the fact that it didn’t have that frozen texture or smelly oder. Another mate went for the healthiest version on the table. The dish was a Japanese inspired cold soba with its broth, topped with boo choy and pan-fried salmon. Oh, and at the very top, that’s some Japanese seaweed for you. This dish was particularly decent since it’s a Japanese dish but they still managed to get a very similar taste to its origin. And lastly, a classic pub dish of steak with potato gratin and steamed broccolini. Not really sure what I really have to say about this one, since it’s quite straight forward. I haven’t never had a steak or beef dish that was outstanding or as spectacular as the Kobe Beef I had in Japan, but nonetheless, she finished everything.
The dinner experience at Sammy’s Place was decent for late at night with little options. One thing that we were disappointed in was the cleanliness. The water glasses were semi-clean, but the worst was the water itself. It was the first time ever that we had tab water that had smell. I can’t describe how the water smelled, but it was a clear sign that we shouldn’t be drinking from it. We had asked for it to be changed, only to get the second carafe with the same problem. We tried our luck for the third time, but the result remained unchanged. In the end, we got something canned or bottled to drink since the complimentary tab water was disgusting.
Sammy’s Place is on the cheaper side in comparison to other restaurants in and around this complex. Since there is a massive casino here, food tend to be more expensive and restaurants tend to be quite fancy - the same goes for The Star complex in Sydney. If you visit their website, you’ll discover that they have so many more restaurants and bars, and if you look at the name at a glance, you will be able to associate them with high value. So for a late night and you don’t know where to sit and eat something proper, head over to Sammy’s Place and you should be on your way.
Another place that we had the chance to try, but would not recommend to you is a Chinese place called Jade Dragon Express, located on level 3. It is actually the younger sister of Jade Dragon, but this time, express and more casual. Jade Dragon is a more formal place with bigger tables that allow you to spin the food around for sharing, a proper white table cloth and some wine glasses. But for a cheaper price, and unfortunately cheaper quality, we went for the express.
We don’t have any pictures to prove it since we were all so hungry, but we went for the really simple stuff. Both the kitchen and front of house team are Chinese so our assumption was that we were in for a good meal. The restaurant was about to close to we had to quickly order out items. We got some fried rice, and a few steamed yum cha items as we all would. The items arrived at our table in a timely manner, since we were the only people in the restaurant. We thought that since we were the last people and also the last orders, our food would be flawless since the chefs would have more time to pay attention to us, but this wasn’t the case. Taste wise, it was not like the Chinese we’ve had before. The atmosphere was also quite sad since we felt that the staff wasn’t happy that we had come in. We all work for hotels so we could understand that receiving last minute guests is not ideal, but this is how the business is. Whether we like it or not, there’s an obligation from us to provide service to the best of our ability at the given service times. Anyhow, I’ll leave it at that.
The complex is located at the Corner of of Federal and Victoria Streets. There are plenty of restaurants all with their own unique cuisines and menus, in which I would recommend that you visit. Otherwise, check out the complex’s website for details of what they offer for food and drinks!
Sky City Restaurants - https://www.skycityauckland.co.nz/restaurants/
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Where to eat Auckland,
Auckland,
New Zealand
