Jesse Mulligan Auckland Restaurant Review: Nomiya’s Japanese Snack Bites Are Works Of Art

... And Jesse reckons their oysters are the best you will find in Auckland.

It’s impossible to visit Japan without becoming a Japan Bore. Perhaps you know a few Japan Bores yourself – half a dozen nights in Tokyo and they act like they grew up there. “Shoes off at the door!” “Do you like our Mount Fuji chopstick holders?” “The Warriors game was great, but it’s no Matcha tea ceremony.” There’s a reason Japan is the hottest destination on the planet; you don’t just want to visit, you want to live it.

Then you come back to boring old New Zealand and everything feels drab by comparison. It’s fine. There are actually loads and loads of things we do better than the Japanese (openness to outsiders, progress on gender equality) but they sure know how to do culture.

And, increasingly, there are places here in Auckland where you can experience a real taste of that culture. Browsing Japanmart in Newmarket; sitting on a crate at Ajimi in Onehunga; taking a kintsugi class at Public Record … and, now, here is Nomiya in Kingsland, where, if you squint your eyes, you could almost be back in Kyoto.

Unfortunately, you will probably be squinting already, because the lighting is much too bright. It’s a shame because they are doing almost everything else right, but the idea of enjoying a drink in a floodlit restaurant at the end of the day will put a lot of people off. You see, we are New Zealanders. While Japanese people look better the more light you throw at them, we prefer to hide our genetic flaws in as much shadow as possible. Dans Le Noir isn’t a novelty for Kiwis, it’s a preferred first date.

We chose seats in a slightly dimmer balcony out the back – still too bright, but darker enough that most of the customers were huddled out here in the middle of winter, warmed by the prospect of being harder to see. Then the food started arriving and we forgave them everything. This is one of the most exciting Japanese kitchens in Auckland.

The format here is “Japanese tapas bar” and it makes sense when they serve their special. If you order a beer you can access a selection of nine snacks for just $9. Nine dollars! That really does feel like Tokyo, where a friend tells me his local bento box is still the same price it was in 1993.

I say snacks; these really are works of art. Nine individual bites set in a beautiful box, they aren’t enough to fill you up but will fill you with joy and wonder. A tiny potato salad, cross sections of lotus root, some lightly pickled cucumber ribbons, a little piece of oily fish … each is just a mouthful but, as with so much of Japanese culture, the experience is more than the sum of its parts.

Next, you should do some oysters. I don’t say this lightly but, these are the best oysters you will eat in the city. Cold, beautiful, not a hint of shell … you will need to order the selection, which is five of them, served in a circle with an increasingly intense selection of condiments: lemon, then ponzu, salmon roe, wasabi (my absolute favourite) and kina. They offer a special oyster-friendly sake with it if you want to make ordering easy.

There is a tapas menu I didn’t flirt too much with (I tried the ramen which was nice but if you’re in the mood for soup I think you should go to ramen shop), mostly because once you have imagined yourself eating nigiri (little block of rice with a sliver of fish on top) it’s very hard not to order it.

“Is this brown rice?” I asked the chef when he placed 10 immaculately constructed nigiri in front of us.

“No, not brown rice,” he said patiently, then explained that in fact the rice is coloured and flavoured with red vinegar, an ancient sushi seasoning which fell out of favour when ingredient prices went up and became a preserve of the rich. I didn’t even see this in Japan (and I ate everything) and it is a lovely, slightly more subtle variation on the St Pierre’s standard.

The more authentic the better, in my view, though there are dishes on the menu where they do more or less than you’d get in Tokyo. Reluctantly adding mayo to a seared salmon, letting you apply your own wasabi and soy rather than applying it beforehand – we managed to convince them to do it according to their own preference, eventually, and I hope they lean into that.

We also (being Japan Bores) asked them to serve us anything the kitchen had that wasn’t on the menu and were rewarded with eel, deep fried and simply salted on a stick, and some toro or fatty tuna, which was a lovely contrast with the deep ruby red stuff which appeared on our sashimi plate.

We spent more than we had to, simply because we didn’t want the experience to end (we were also killing time before State of Origin kick-off, possibly the first time in history someone has ordered another plate of toro nigiri while browsing rugby league multi-bets on the TAB app). I hope you will go, I hope they’ll turn the lights down, and I hope the lovely people who run this restaurant will continue running it for a very long time.

Nomiya

Address: 484 New North Rd, Kingsland, ph 021 195 4887

Drinks: Fully licensed

Reservations: Call or DM via Instagram

From the menu: Nigiri small platter 25, Sashimi small platter 29, “kimagure” box 9, oyster medley 39, toro nigiri (off menu) 28, chicken nanban 10, Yuzu pepper Ramen 19, eel on a stick (off menu) 10

Rating: 17/20

Score: 0-7 Steer clear. 8-12 Disappointing, give it a miss. 13-15 Good, give it a go. 16-18 Great, plan a visit. 19-20 Outstanding, don’t delay.

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