Kanafeh Levantine dessert - cheese, pastry and rosewater syrup finished with a generous sprinkle of pistachio, and served with mint tea at Ima Cuisine on Fort Street, Auckland. Photo/Jason Oxenham
Kanafeh Levantine dessert - cheese, pastry and rosewater syrup finished with a generous sprinkle of pistachio, and served with mint tea at Ima Cuisine on Fort Street, Auckland. Photo/Jason Oxenham
The ultimate Easter resurrection? Restaurant critic Kim Knight visits an eatery famous for its hot cross buns and discovers even more hot cross buns.
Theeey're back! More accurately, perhaps, they never went away.
Those hot cross buns you had to queue for two months ago? Imagine them thick-sliced and repurposedwith icecream and sherry - because Ima is not just for Easter.
The Fort St restaurant's hot cross bun bread pudding ($14) is more like an extremely rich slab of fruity brioche than the traditional milk-soaked monstrosity you may have endured as a child. I ordered reluctantly. I don't like bread-and-butter pudding because I'd rather suck a dishcloth than eat soggy bread but, when the key ingredient is one of Auckland's most-feted baked goods, I feel a professional obligation to at least have a bite.
It was immediately obvious the edges were burnt. Surely, this would be terrible? Then the dark, raisiny Pedro Ximenez sherry kicked in and so did the melty softness of the vanilla icecream and, ultimately, this was the most caramelly, autumnal dessert you could imagine. I asked for one portion to share and definitely ate more than mine.
Dinner at Ima might just be the perfect segue to winter. There's something about the mismatched chairs, the Crown Lynn crockery and the chunky wool knit lampshades that makes me want to pass bread and clink glasses while it gets dark and cold outside.
Bright lights (and less shouting across the table) at the newly refurbished Ima Cuisine, where knitted lampshades help absorb noise. Photo/Jason Oxenham
Sadly, the waitstaff did not share my vision. There were some very long pauses between drinks, plate clearing and even the initial delivery of our menus. No one pointed out any specials (it seemed curious there was no fish?) and I almost had an argument with one server when she baulked at a request for more dessert spoons. Ima is one of my favourite Auckland restaurants. I associate it with colour and chaos, love and warmth - but not all of those attributes were present on a recent Friday.
Let's hope I just caught them on a bad night. What hasn't changed is the soul-nourishing goodness of the food. This is such a great place for groups, partly because of the set mezze ($16 per diner) that encourages co-operation and conversation. (On that note, the newly refurbished Ima requires slightly less shouting, thanks to those woolly, sound-absorbing lampshades - an important consideration in a restaurant where 95 per cent of sentences begin, "Please pass the …")
Finish the above sentence with the words "pita bread". It's the fluffiest and freshest you'll find in the city. Unbelievably good, even before you use it to mop up smoky baba ganoush, a chunky red pepper-heavy matbucha, creamy labneh and more. Later, I thought it strange there was no hummus (and now I see it's listed on the menu but just didn't make it to our table).
Setting up for service at Ima Cuisine on Fort Street. Photo/Jason Oxenham
We supplemented our starters with a bowl of cauliflower smothered in tahini and the tangy sting of a sumac spice mix ($5.50). It looked like month-old mashed potatoes but tasted amazing. Beef sambusak, meanwhile, was a samosa-meets-baby-mince-pie experience ($4.50 apiece) and I liked it for the deep-fried pastry crunch it brought to the table.
How many carrots must have been chopped in the history of Ima? Every table that orders a main gets the same selection of salads and rice. I love the fresh brightness and, again, the way that you have to pass bowls and fill your own plate. What I love even more, is the slow-cooked lamb with the cooking juices you'll want to take home and keep for a rainy day.
You absolutely cannot go wrong with that lamb ($28 a serve) but you might also consider the chicken meschan ($25) that's also falling-off-the-bone tender but has more of a sweet-sour flavour profile that was enough to finally convince me the food magazines are correct - every kitchen cupboard needs a bottle of pomegranate molasses.
A serve of halloumi ($25.50) was generous and scattered with mint that contrasted nicely with the rich flavours we were indulging in. Which brings me to our second dessert. I started this review with the hot cross buns but what I really insist you finish with is the kanafeh levantine ($12).
Prepare to be transported as far from Auckland as you could imagine right now with this rosewater syrup-soaked, pistachio-crusted, shredded pastry and (you are reading this correctly) mozzarella cheese dessert. Was it a pie? Was it a pizza? Quite simply, it was the most evocative pudding I've had in a long time. Food transcends borders, even when people can't.
Ima Cuisine, 53 Fort St, Auckland, ph (09) 377 5252. We spent: $325 for four.
IMA CUISINE DRINKS LIST
What's not to love about a drinks list bordered with filigree and filled with fonts that look like they've been traced directly from Noelene Morris' The Lettering Book, circa 1985? Shouldn't matter, doesn't matter, just tickles me. The wine list is nicely put together and happily, loads are available by the glass. Three sparkles, a prosecco, a local methode (Osawa) and the obligatory $110 bottle of Champagne (Laurent Perrier, nice), a couple of sauvignons, a couple of pinot gris (although I reckon if you're going to list two, make one dry and one slightly sweeter, not two bone-dry styles). There are a couple of local chardonnays and, praise be, two gewurztraminers! The perfect white wine style for Middle Eastern cuisine! Plus there's a crisp, crunchy soave, racy riesling from Domain Road, a viognier with vavoom (Askerne) and an apple-tastic albarino from Nautilus. Most excellently, two Lebanese wines (a rosé and a red) from the house of Musar bring an authentic edge to the list, or you can indulge in Gisborne pinotage, Central Otago pinot noir, cabernet merlot blends from Waiheke Island (and France), montepulciano from Italy, tempranillo from Spain. Two shiraz from Australia and a syrah from (sigh) Australia. Really Ima? You couldn't stretch to a syrah from Hawke's Bay?
However, I do love that you can treat yourself to a "digestif" liquor of crab apple and vanilla or damson plum gin. A digestif is something you drink after a meal to help your gizzard do its good work, as opposed to an "aperitif", which is something sipped pre-food to fortify your insides for what's to come. And what's to come is yum.
