Summer reads: The complete guide to Auckland's best comfort food
The New Zealand Herald is bringing back some of the best premium stories of 2020. Today we take a look at our favourite foods and where best to find them. Over the course of the year, Greg Bruce visited Auckland's most lauded establishments in search of the city's best eats.Here's what he found.
Are these Auckland's best hot chips?
Food has become so difficult and cerebral but, when we strip everything away - the philosophy and aesthetics, the science, the art and the bulls*** - when we really get down to it, what we care about most is potato cooked in fat.
Chips, the world's greatest food, have for too long been treated with disdain by those who see them as the quick and easy production of a plate full of profit. The transformation of a chip from its two basic ingredients to something worthy of two pages in a high-quality magazine requires organisational and logistical sophistication.
The production of a good chip is a mathematical exercise, reducible to a series of formulae: weight and density per square inch, interior to exterior ratio, fat/potato quality matrix and so forth. It's punishingly difficult to perfect and critical decisions need to be made at each stage of the process: sourcing; supply chain management; storage; preparation; fat selection; cooking style, time, heat, duration and frequency; aftercare; seasoning and presentation.
There's certainly no shortage of pie options in Auckland these days. From butter chicken pies to beef cheek and blue cheese, there's flavour options aplenty.
Are you a traditional pepperoni lover or more adventurous when it comes to your pizza toppings? Luckily the abundance of pizza options in Auckland means there's something for everyone.
