TSUJIRI Lorne Street — Restaurant in Waitematā

....was wondering why there were so much queue for weeks. Turns out the staff in charge of manning the counter is a maestro and master artist on sticking the order labels on cups with the most perfect symmetry, always making sure the cake is placed with the most perfect plating, always making sure the supply is kept up to the brim all the while 10+ customers in the queue are staring at him in disbelief while the first person on the queue is stuck there waiting to be served for 5 full minutes.

Not worth the wait.

Edit: hah, the above was written while I was waiting for my tsujiri parfait to turn up after I ordered it. It came out about 20 minutes after the order. I was confused why it took the staff so long because it's a tiny soft serve in a regular coffee takeout cup sized cup, with some kind of grainy stuff in 1/4 of the cup, 1/6 red bean, green tea soft serve, a roasted chestnut, a tasteless tiny rice cake, and finally decorated with a small shell of a shallow waffle-like thing. How does this take 20 minutes. There were only 4 orders before me and they were all single item orders. Just what. There are a better, in both quality and value, dessert places in the city. Not worth.

Oh, and I had to remind the staff that I also ordered a Swiss roll cake slice as I was given my "parfait", who looked at my receipt, panicked a little, ran to the other side of the kitchen to grab the plate which probably was sitting there for a while.

Hey, I waited for this place to open for 6 months and this is the result? No one cares about getting the perfect placement of stickers on a takeout cup

Meanwhile my friend who was with me ordered a green tea latte and it tasted like milk. Yeah. Just milk. Green milk. What.

Only menu that is probably cough worth cough the value is the shaved ice

This edit was written in what looks like a game effort to write something nice about the place and ... this happened. I give up.

To improve: please don't waste time on sticking labels. Just stick it and walk away same on placing chestnuts and rice cakes. I actually watched the process of placing a single rice cake on the "parfait" and it took 1 full minutes. The ice cream was melting. *if there is a queue please go through the waiting customers and process the order. Worry about the cups later. *why are you wiping plastic forks sparkling clean. Unless you are salvaging used ones from the trash...

I have never even written a bad review for anything until this store. I PRE ORDERED AND PAID for a cake but when I showed up at the time stated in the order, they said there was nothing for me to pick up and told me to pick another cake or pick up another time. What the actual heck? What was the point of pre ordering and prepaying then? Did the manager not understand common logic that a person who preorders a cake means they NEED THAT SPECIFIC TYPE OF CAKE AT A SPECIFIC TIME? If they did not have the order in advance, they should have informed me, not leaving it until the last minute. At first I was told that their delivery guy was delayed, then was told the delivery guy would NOT BE DELIVERING TODAY, afterwards I was told their other store had the cake I wanted and WAS ASKED TO GO THERE TO PICK UP, then RIGHT AFTER, the other store also sold out that type of cake!

I could have asked for a refund but I had to choose another cake because I needed a cake for the occasion.

It felt like I was forced and had no choice at all. STAY AWAY FROM THIS HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!

Felt bad for the poor guy manning the desk relaying what their manager said and trying their best to make it work. Kudos to him but manager’s blasé attitude I honestly have nothing to say!!!

HIGHLY RECOMMEND TO NOT COME TO THIS PLACE IF YOU’RE LOOKING...

The warabi mochi came with sufficient kuromitsu and a scant amount of kinako. Furthermore, it came on a long, shallow dish wih a spoon, very difficult to eat. Bowl or fork please. Just a weird combination of plating/utensil.

My wife got shiratama, with similar presentation. Upon eating, the shiratama was hard and dry on the inside. The quality for both sweets does not reflect the price. I lived in Japan for five years and my wife is Japanese, I'd like to think we know what we're talking about.

We were so excited to try this on our first time to Auckland city, and the reality did not live up to our expectations.

Japanese cuisine is middling in most of the country, and thought Auckland to be our best bet for quality Japanese food. We are, however, both of the opinion it was a bad representation of Japanese sweets, especially considering the legacy of Tsujiri in Kyoto.

My wife also commented the frozen mitarashi dango she ate the other day was better, and I would have to agree.

On a good note, the iced matcha latte was passable for me, hence the 2 stars.

Up your...