Master Kong — Restaurant in Maungakiekie-Tāmaki

Disappointing visit here on a Tuesday evening, after being tempted in by the inexplicable universal 5 star reviews

GOOD Service: all our servers were welcoming, friendly, and helpful, and our food was brought out super quickly Vibe: cool modern industrial Asian aesthetic, can imagine the lighting and music would be great on a Friday or Saturday evening

BAD: Look, nothing was truly dire or inedible, but none of the 4 dishes that we ordered were good. Pork belly bao buns ($19 for 2): OK flavour, average texture, underfilled Asian greens ($13): pan-fried mixture of pak choi, broccoli, edamame and peas. Cooked fine, but very lacking in seasoning. Pad Thai ($32 for the standard tofu-containing option; chicken costs $6 extra): the best of the lot, with a fairly decent flavour, but all the noodles were slightly overcooked and broken into 1-2cm shards. Short rib ($43): very disappointing. Again, very poorly seasoned - the supposed Filipino Asado sauce just tasted like beef gravy. Admittedly tender but extremely fatty meat. Duck fat fried rice was so oily and lacking in any other flavour that we had to give up halfway through.

I accept that fusion food doesn't have to be ultra authentic, and that on a Tuesday they may have been having an off night in the kitchen. As everything was edible, there was nothing to be gained from sending the food back to the kitchen, short of remaking each dish from scratch.

I hate being negative and very rarely write Google reviews. However, for prices that you'd expect on Ponsonby Road, the food needs to taste far better than this. There are 100s of great Asian and Asian fusion restaurants in Auckland, but this wasn't one of them, at least not today.

Yum Cha (directly opposite) is a far better option, unless Master Kong...

4 OVERALL (round 2 - serving time improved)

Very swift service on our second visit, we did not wait long before food came. We were seated in the middle, pretty comfortable round table. The squid and chicken were nice as usual. Dimsum and dumplings were okay, sauce was a bit too spicy - was a bit disappointed as we were not able to enjoy them. They have eased on the salt for fried cauliflower which was good. Pad thai a bit sour for me. A little too much oil for the fried beans. Mee goreng was good, specially the pork belly - very tender and nice.

Unfortunately, no xiao long bao again - manager explained supplier did not have any and apologised for the menu not updated.

3.7 OVERALL (round 1)

Ambiance was good but some tables lack lighting. Staff are courteous and respectful, but we waited more than 15mins before the first dish despite having reservation. Truffle dumpling and sauce, and the squid were good. Generous portion on edamame, but a bit too salty for me. The fried cauliflower was salty as well. Pork dim sum was huge. Chicken was nice. The first siu mai i ate was cold inside, had to send it back. Pad thai tamarind sauce was too strong for my taste, while the fried rice had too much onions. Pork belly Mee Goreng was good but also too much onions. The Bao Buns were sent out an hour of our dining. Sadly they did not have xiao long bao - should have been disclosed from the start. Only found out when i asked for it twice as i was looking forward for it. This was our 2nd time dining at Master Kong, the first was in Mt Maunganui (food was amazing). This is our first time in Sylvia Park location.

On a positive note, they have a different rule compared to other eat all you can, find out...

Disappointing experience. Wouldn’t recommend and wouldn’t go again. There are much better Asian fusion restaurants such as Tok Tok and Xoong.

We ordered quite a lot of food but the only decent dishes were the dumplings and the ceviche. Everything else was disappointing.

The server didn’t seem to understand English very well and didn’t know the menu which made ordering difficult.

Popcorn prawns were dry and chewy. It seemed as though they had been reheated multiple times. The prawns were so small you could barely taste they were prawns. Squid was okay but could have been crispier. Cheesburger spring rolls were average and lacking flavour. Grilled eggplant was bland and was served with some strange tasting sauce (couldn’t work out what it was). Not to mention, the server called it “grilled eggs” when she brought it to our table… Pad Thai wasn’t authentic and had too much tamarind sauce which made the dish sour. We added chicken but the dish was served without chicken so had to be sent it back. Get Ducked - I understand this is supposed to be a take on Peking Duck, as the menu suggests. However, this was not at all similar to Peking Duck. The pieces of duck were cut into chunks, not thinly sliced as it should be for Peking duck. The pancakes were thick and dry. 12 hour short rib was decent...