Little Tokyo

As a birthday treat, we headed up to a row of Japanese restaurants and bars for dinner last night.

The oriental eateries can be found towards the top of Queen Street, Auckland's main drag, and are housed in one of the older buildings in the city. The shops are more than 100 years old and are protected by the New Zealand historic places trust. They were constructed from native kauri wood and the cellars feature bare volcanic rock retaining-walls. Once threatened by development by the nearby municipal arts centre, it's hoped that these shops are now in the clear thanks to a petition boasting around 7000 signatures.

We were shown to a traditional Japanese table and kicked off our shoes before taking a seat. The dinner that followed was delicious. We started with edamame, pork belly (for him) and deep-fried whole soft shell shrimps - complete with pincers which Skene declared to taste like pretzels. Next up, we both plumped for donburi. Mine was a fairly standard eel teriyaki on steamed rice but Skene selected the special Kura option which featured all sorts of odd ingredients - grated yam potato paste, Natto-fermented soy bean, mentaiko (the marinated roe of pollock), fresh sashimi, and raw egg yolk. Eugh. He assessed it as wrong but good. All washed down with Kikumasamune chrysanthemum flower sake.

Later we moved down the road for a post-prandial jug of dew of peach blossom sake at the Nombe stand bar - a recreation of a Japanese tachinomi - a standing-room only bar frequented by Japan's salarymen on the way home from the office.