Platform 8 - Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Waitematā

We came here for dinner on a Saturday night and ordered a few small plates and one big plate. It had so much potential - incredible venue in Auckland’s old railway station, looking out over the high decorated ceilings and the restaurant itself was small and intimate.

Unfortunately we were severely underwhelmed. The dumplings tasted like they came from a frozen pack you can buy at the supermarket, cost $15 for five and came lukewarm and swimming in soy sauce. The tiger prawns had barely been seasoned, also tasted like they came from a frozen pack, were lukewarm, and came with a massive dollop of mayonnaise. The croquettes were delicious and probably the only good part about the meal. Finally the large chicken dish was very average, a tiny portion for $30, parts of the breast were chewy and hard to cut through, and it was far too sweet. They also forgot to bring out our eggplant dish, which we didn’t mind as we were keen to leave.

In total we ordered four small plates and one large plate and were barely satisfied. The wait staff took a long time to bring out our drinks, even though there were less than 20 people in the restaurant and about 10 by the time we left.

To summarise - judging from past reviews this place had let their standards slip severely. I hope they put more effort into their food, and perhaps look at serving more generous portions for the prices they charge, as it has the potential to be a great, cosy...

Unfortunately this was one of the worst dining experiences we have had to date. It’s started off great with a complimentary flat bread and pesto from the chef and awesome mocktails from Felix behind the bar. The entrees came and were a bit bland and average with very inconsistent sizing - two king prawns and one prawn that was half the size...!? The mains came along and that’s where it just when downhill so very very fast. The beef cheek was a chewy rubber boot covered in a thick salty tar ‘jus’, there was a smudge of spicy pumpkin purée - not the caramelised cauliflower described on the menu and there was a dollop of the same basil pesto from earlier - definitely not gremolata. There was an added addition of a scattering of potato wedges also not on the menu description but probably helped swallow the salty jus that smothered everything. The confit duck was just a gooey jelly salty mess and not worth describing any further.

Felix did a fantastic job with the mocktails, they looked delicious and tasted fantastic, keep it up! He did what he could to salvage our experience; hopefully our feedback gets passed along to the kitchen as with other reviews it seems as though the food consistently...

We regretfully nabbed a Valentine’s Day deal that was advertised online and were met with severely average food.

The two entrees, prawn and cucumber, were bland and lacklustre - a little bit of salt would have elevated the cucumber dish 10-fold. The two mains, lamb and fish, were nothing to write home about but were perhaps the better dishes of the evening (low bar, to be fair). The desserts were stodgy, with the ganache resembling the texture of an uncooked brownie mixture.

The restaurant itself is situated in a dark corner in the railway station building, and for whatever reason, a face painting class was being held in the restaurant space which takes away from the dining experience as you’re more focused on the painting class than the food (maybe a good thing as the food wasn’t that great anyway?).

Overall, we spent a fair amount of dollar for the worst dining experience we’ve ever had. I’m confident that if we had spent that (or even less) elsewhere, we would have had a more...