Rock Yard Restaurant — Restaurant in North Island

2024 review: I returned, this time on a Wednesday evening. The place was nearly full, I recommend booking. The beautiful ceiling lanterns are still there. The kitchen is still quick and the staff attentive. I ordered the vegan and gluten free Đậu Hũ Cuộn Nấm Stuffed Tofu Delights. It was excellent. It was fresh tofu (not something reheated from a bag which is commonplace nowadays), a good mix of vegetables, sizzling hot, and the portion generously sized. This could easily be shared amongst two people with the addition of rice. I recommend this dish. Looking at other diners meals, they were similarly generous. The Mực Chiên Giòn Crispy Calamari with chilli jam ginger sauce I had as a starter was average. It came promptly and hot, but I would not have said it was calamari if I hadn't ordered it, and the sauce was nothing special. Overall, I'll be back. 2021 review: Saturday evening & was nearly full of diners. Great location, loved the coloured lanterns, attentive wait staff & quick kitchen. I ordered the tofu & mushroom curry with rice on the side. The rice was fluffy & the curry broth tasty BUT the mushrooms were missing, there wasn't much tofu, & the root vegetables in the curry were still crunchy (carrots I can cope with, undercooked kumara and potato aren't nice). The desserts looked delicious...

Really enjoy going to this restaurant. I love the interior decor with colourful Vietnamese lanterns handing from the ceiling, the food is great and the staff are always very friendly and accommodating, and the atmosphere is vibrant. We had the Crispy Pillow Dumplings filled with buttercup squash and the Soft Shell Crab Bao Buns as starters. Both were really yum. The dumplings were light, crispy and fluffy like pillows. For mains we had the Chilli Lemongrass Chicken and Soy Glazed Tofu with Vermicelli Noodles. We weren't sure at first if the chicken was actually chicken because it tasted more like duck, but we were assured that it is. My partner enjoyed it. I was a little disappointed with the salad as it didn't have much flavour and all the ingredients were separated in the bowl, but even when all mixed together it didn't have much flavour. So I requested some fish sauce mixed with chilli plus some fresh coriander and that made it so much more flavoursome. I would highly recommend they serve the dish with this sauce and coriander to add more flavour. The staff were very polite and checked on us regularly. It was no problem for them to cater for my request. ...

Dinner at Rockyard recently was disappointing - food was average and our speed eating skills were not up to the mark! Because we had family staying from out of town and from the States it would have been good to be able to showcase a typically excellent Wellington experience. Not so. We had had to book for the early sitting at 5 pm. (This restaurant fits in three sittings per evening so be aware of the timeframe especially in a larger group as we were - seven). It turned out we had the table for only an hour and a half - should have done the maths. So everything was very rushed - staff eager to pull unfinshed wine from the table, and after the entree there was no time to finish the mains so asked for the unfinished meals to be packaged for takeaway. Small takeaway containers were dropped onto the table for us to do the packaging - had to ask for bigger ones. The upshot of all this and the general attitude of the staff to get us through, was that we were very much left with the taste of a conveyer belt experience geared to the profits of the business. As for the food, it was satisfactory but I have tasted better in both New Zealand...