Hotpot Duke — Restaurant in Albert-Eden

Delicious and authentic hotpot, so I'm told by my mainland Chinese friend :)

Vibe/location: Just off the main road, close to off-street parking. High ceiling and nice and spacious seating in open booth type seats. Nice vibe with quiet US pop music in the background. Not too quiet, not too loud, just right for me! The place had Chinese minimalist decor, concrete.walls and black tables and seats in modern minilist Chinese style.

Menu: Both Chinese and English, easy to follow. For me, a westerner who hasn't been to a hotpot before, and doesn't know how to order!

This is how we ordered: -Choose your soup base (we had mushroom and nutritious chicken). -Choose a couple of meats sliced (and you can also get tripe and all sorts of cuts westerners don't always eat!), noodles if you want. -Veges: We had cabbage and spinach, black fungus mushroom. -Type of tofu (we had tofu skin), -Chinese meatballs (I loved the ones with fillings but they get very hot inside!)

Then you can get extras such as chicken knuckles, Chinese pickle, Sichuan spicy pepper chicken, wontons etc.

If you have been to Papa rich or diner style then it is similar ordering, you tick the boxes and then give it to them You can also tick how spicy you want some things.

All the plates come raw and thin. The menu advises how many seconds or minutes it takes to cook each item of food (most were about 15 seconds, the frozen meatballs were about 2mins).

Pricing: Not cheap, unless maybe if you are in a big group. Most plates are about $8-12 each so it isn't cheap if it is just two people and you want a variety, best in a group. You can take leftovers but it is not really designed for that. We did, but we took a long time to decide how we wanted to go about it, and the containers were 50c and $1 each ( we were told it was an incentive to reduce plastic consumption). Will see how it holds up in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.

My favourite part was the sauce bar. They had oyster, hoisin, sesame sauce, as well as sesame oil, vinegar, soy sauce, fresh chilli, fresh garlic, chilli oil, peanuts, coriander, spring onion, even MSG! I as a westerner was surprised by this last one as I actually thought it was illegal in NZ due to the negative health effects! There were also 3-4 others that I didn't know so I felt it was a great range of dishes, my friend also seemed happy with the range.

Only issue is the price at the end, but that's why going in a big group is best so you can order a bit of everything!!

Staff: Were great, kept coming around and topping up our soups in the pot as well. Busy, but never had to wait more than a minute.

Other:

There was a Lady Gaga-invoking 'plate' that had meat draped on a doll as a plate 😂 that gets your attention!!

Coat racks were also a nice attention to detail, and small drawers under the table full of napkins, which were accessible and also private. So handy. Being tall, the seat were quite low.for me but otherwise comfortable. My friend who is short also felt the table was a bit low.

Drinks: We just had tea, but felt they had an ok range of drinks: western wine, Soju, a few beers, and some Chinese drinks as well as your usual soft drinks, some packeted drinks also. One expensive Chinese drink for $888!!!! Must be very lucky for that price.

We are soooooo full. I don't think you could ever leave here hungry!!! I'll come back with a crowd next time! They also have private rooms for...

We used to go fortnightly 2 years ago, we decided revisited the restaurant again on Thursday 5:30pm after work for dinner thinking we would avoid the long wait and get a table without reservations, as we are aware it is a very popular restaurant. We managed to get shown to a table promptly. They are definitely short staff and I felt very sorry for the only woman carrying out all the heavy soup pots and wheel out the food trolleys for the 5 tables that already have customers, she was the only one who continued to bring out the heavy soup pots and food trolley the whole time we were there till all the tables were full by the time we left around 7pm. We waited 45mins before our food arrives as it was observed there were only 1 woman serving food from the kitchen, 2 wait staff and 1 reception staff, who is also handling delivery orders. The food was great and consistent, the restaurant probably has the most complete and fresh sauces station compare to other hotpot places I have been to. Pricing is fair by Auckland central standards. They also have customer parking across the road if you arrive early. I would return again, when I have more time to wait rather than a quick after work dinner.

**Update: return for lunch today, I am pleasantly surprise how toddler friendly the restaurant is, the staff automatically brought out a clean high chair, toddler friendly plates, cutlery, colouring paper and markers. Service was great, both staff working the shift were friendly, accommodating and efficient, the male staff took such joy in presenting the dishes with “Smokey” effect in front of my toddler, my toddler loved it and call it the volcano dish. I would definitely return for a...

Smelled cigarettes in the restaurant when we entered.. it went away soon, but still. A bit expensive than other chinese restaurants around there, but there are not many hotpot places around, so yeah.

Had 3 soup base; tomato, mushroom, beef tallow spicy(med). Tomato one was pretty good, and mushroom was my partner's fav.

Each dish is pretty big. The restaurant provides you a piece of paper of...basically 'how to order/eat' for non Chinese customers, and as it is written, 3-4 dishes per head would be perfect. We ordered about 10 dishes, and we couldn't finish all. If it is your first visit, I would recommend you order less and add on later...

Will probably order chicken gizzard, potato, and cabbage again but not the others.

Beef was a bit tough. Dandan noodles were overcooked, so the noodles were sticking all together, and couldn't mix it properly. It was almost like one big noodle ball. Spring onion pancake; I expected spring onion and batter mixed and cooked together, but it was a savoury pancake with raw, cut spring onion on top of...