The Narrow Table - good food, vague service. Photo / Getty Images
Herald on Sunday rating: * * *
Address: 435 Beach Rd, Mairangi Bay
Phone: (09) 475 9484
Open: Dinner Tuesday-Saturday
Vegetarians: One entree, one main.
Watch out for: Attention.
Wine list: Adequate.
Bottom line: The devil is in the details.
The waitress at this small bistro in Auckland's East Coast Bays approached us after we had got to grips with our main courses to ask if everything was all right. "May I be frank?" I asked, pointing at a side of beans. They were mushy, faintly yellow, virtually
tasteless and cooked to ribbons.
She conveyed this to the kitchen, whence issued the advice that the beans were "braised" which, I will later discover, is fancy chef's talk for "cooked to ribbons". It is a method recommended for "thicker, older, out-of-season beans", I will read.
Well, the bean season was on its last legs when we ate at the Narrow Table but, if you ask me (which they weren't; why would they ask anyone who doesn't know what braised beans are?) it would be smarter to serve in-season vegetables. Or at least put on the menu, in front of where it says "green beans", the warning adjective "braised". They don't even have to add "to ribbons".
We had ventured deep into the heart of the gastronomic desert that is North Shore City, because we had heard good reports of this place.
They gave us what they called their best table, by the window, but, having admired the view of a council litter bin and my own parked car for an evening, I suggest they either frost the glass or change their definition of best table.
The music could do with some rethinking, too - neither bass-heavy technofunk nor avant-garde obbligato for answerphone beeps is conducive to good digestion.
These matters may seem small but they add up and ultimately rather undermine the impression that owner Sonya Paget, who has cooked at the Stamford Plaza and the Gault at George, probably wants to create in her first solo venture.
The food is mostly good and some of it is very good indeed. We started with half a dozen Bluff oysters which, served with a dipping bowl of a divinely light lemon vinaigrette, were extremely memorable.
I was a bit sceptical about an entree of smoked eel, but the fillets came in a delicate tempura-like batter and the accompaniments of pickled cucumber and horseradish mayonnaise made the whole dish sing.
An entree of stewed rabbit imaginatively included swollen and juicy muscatels - a nice touch, although it failed to sway me from the view that rabbit is campfire tucker rather than restaurant food.
I've always thought of coq au vin as sort of culinary disaster waiting to happen. It is one of my many hideous memories of the 70s, when it was inevitably paired with Blue Nun liebfraumilch.
But it's a noble French dish and Paget's take (madeira, bacon and mushrooms) is an absolute knockout, juicy meat in a rich, densely flavoured sauce. The Blonde was deeply impressed with a generous slab of herb-crusted hapuku.
So it's the vague service that lets this place down. Our young waitress was great but the maitre d', who loudly announced that she used to be a sales rep in the hospitality industry, has a bit to learn about scanning the room; I stared at her for five minutes from five metres away but could not attract her attention so we could get our bill.
It seemed such a shame to interrupt her.
THE BILL
$166 for two
Oysters $24
Eel $15
Rabbit $15
Fish $29
Coq $28
Wine (three glasses) $42
Dessert $9
Coffee $4
