Shio ramen from Zool Zool.
Settling down with a hot bowl of flavoursome, nutritious soup while winter lashes against the window panes is an excellent mood-lifter.
And it's even more jolly when someone else has done the hard work and all you have to do is lift a spoon - and perhaps a slice of toast or a pair of chopsticks.
Yael Shochat's restaurant Ima in the CBD boasts a goulash soup that's several days (and several hundred years) in the making. Shochat explains that her version of the dish taken to Israel by Hungarian Ashkenazi Jews is made in memory of "my Grandma Jean, the goulash queen". It boasts a lot of warming sweet smoked paprika, plenty of veges and generous chunks of tender beef shin. If you're keen, the dish (large $17.50; small $10.50) is available only on Fridays.
A brisk walk or bike ride around the inner-west suburbs and Westhaven's pretty boardwalk is best capped off by calling into Swashbucklers. If you can look past the tempting baskets of deep-fried morsels you'll find they do a mean seafood chowder ($21). Although it's on the entree menu it's a decent size and - it gets better - is served with garlic bread.
Regulars won't let Nick Honeyman forget how much they love the parmesan soup he once had on the menu at Paris Butter, in Herne Bay. So Honeyman often makes it on request, and has a version of it on the degustation menu (Gourmand Menu de Chef - $69) right now, which comes daintily served in an onion. Parmesan soup? Honeyman explains: "The inspiration came from a bistro in Paris, Chez l'Ami Jean. The concept sounded bizarre but when I had a go at making one the flavours were incredible. Parmesan has so much umami in every bite."
If you've ever travelled in Turkey you'll probably remember the ubiquitous red lentil soup served as an entree to just about every meal. I fell in love with the stuff as a young backpacker and have sought it out ever since. Cooked-down red lentils marry with the unmistakable note of cumin - and a squeeze of lemon at the end really makes it. Miss Istanbul in Ponsonby Central has it as a winter special ($13.50).
Sid Sahrawat's menu at Sidart in Ponsonby has recently shifted focus. The modern techniques Sahrawat is famous for are now imbued with culinary influences from his mother country, India. Throughout winter you'll find a hot soup as one of the tasting courses (Discovery Menu - $160). The current menu's aromatic chicken broth has an intense concentration of flavour. This is next-level soup.
Ponsonby's Orphans Kitchen team a chicken broth with carrot and caraway and German-style dumplings ($19) and the cosy dining room is a lovely place to while away a lunch hour in. Then there's the noodle soups, and Auckland is blessed with a great variety of these. Take a bow, Asia, your noodle-filled contribution to the world of soup is unrivalled.
Although the won ton noodle soup at Chinese Cuisine in Mercury Plaza comes a close second, my new favourite WTNS lives at Happy Cafe in Royal Oak, taking out first place thanks to its very generous won ton filling, consisting of both minced pork and juicy prawns and their beautifully honeyish barbecue pork, made on site. These are complemented by a rounded, quite peppery umami broth, thin yellow noodles and strips of softened white cabbage ($9.50).
Hokkaido-style kotteri (rich, thick) broths are what you go to Uptown's Ramen Do for; the signature being their Hokkaido-style miso ramen with pork belly ($13.50). I love that Ramen Do offer a kid's-size ramen for $5, and that they make their own noodles and also sell them portioned to-go for DIY ramen hopefuls like me to play with at home. If it's assari (light, clear) broth you crave, Mt Eden's Zool Zool excels. Their shio (sea salt) with chicken ($14) is a lesson in restraint; it perfectly satisfies, yet leaves you feeling there's room for dessert, because the kitchen here also makes the most amazing little cream caramel pots.
What's better than a broth with notes of star anise, ginger and Sichuan pepper, packed with noodles, pickled vegetables, Chinese greens and chunks of slow-cooked beef? All of the above with the addition of deliciously unctuous beef tendon. Find it ($12.50) at Taiwanese restaurant and bubble tea specialist J's Tea in Mt Roskill.
There are many regional takes on laksa, and though coconut-based curry laksa is perhaps the best known to Aucklanders, I urge anyone with a hankering for sour, spicy flavours to try Penang assam laksa. The Noodle House in New Lynn does a very good version, built around a stock flavoured with tamarind and a little, but not too much, chilli, and enriched with a load of flaked fresh fish. In this case you'll find mackerel and snapper in the bowl. ($13)
If all-out spicy is what you're set on, head to 88 Degree Chongqing Noodles in Mt Eden (be aware there are similarly named eateries, the one at 340 Dominion Rd is the one you want) and ask for M35. This noodle soup is raging with dried red chillies and sichuan peppercorns, and topped with delicate strips of pork belly and pickled vegetables.
I've spent too many years bemoaning the lack of a really good Vietnamese pho in this city so imagine my delight when in researching this story I found one that ticked all the boxes. Newly opened Nam Nam in Takapuna make their selection of pho to family recipes, the stocks made by simmering bones with whole spices, enough herbs to satisfy and a side of bean sprouts and fresh lime to squeeze over. That they come in two sizes (small is $9.50, large is $12.50) is great news for those with small children (my 9-year-old daughter pronounced the size perfectly tummy-filling and restorative) or those greedy guts like me who want to sample from the rest of the menu at the same time.
Plus, Beauden Barrett's new side hustle.