Reviews / Food
recent Reviews/Food
by Niki Lomax | 5:01 am, 10/10/2011
by | 3:47 am, 03/10/2011
With uni getting more stressful by the day (seriously - nervous breakdown imminent), a meal that takes 20 mins to throw together and another 30 mins or so to cook sounds ideal. Making a quiche is really easy. It requires minimal preparation and then you pretty much just throw it in the oven and walk away. An episode of QI later, it will be all ready to go! Excellent.
by | 6:20 am, 19/09/2011
I think it’s time for a collective sigh of relief. Winter is pretty much over and a head of broccoli is less than $2 again. Let the joyous prancing ensue! Before you know it we will all be feasting on tomato and capsicum like it’s going out of fashion.
by Ruby the Nutritionist | 2:50 am, 12/09/2011
Chickpeas are just the best. Every time I go home for a holiday I fill a gym bag with delicious things from my mum’s pantry (Air NZ “sports allowance”, thank you!), including various nuts and seeds and dried fruit and, of course, cans of delicious legumey goodness. Mum just sighs wearily and reminds me to remember this time in my life when I consider farming her off to an old folk’s home. Dreaming mate.
by Susie Krieble | 11:30 pm, 22/08/2011
You may have noticed that the vast majority of recipes this year in Critic have been vegetarian. This is for two reasons: 1) meat is expensive and we are povo and 2) the food editor and 90% of the contributors live meat-free and vege-plenty. However, we understand that not everyone is this way inclined, so this week we have killed some animals for y’all. Aren’t we nice? Specifically, this week we are workin’ with chicken.
Jizo
by Tien-Yi Toh | 12:48 am 26/07/2010
56 Princes Street
Jizo has, hands down, the best teriyaki chicken sushi that I've ever tasted. When I first tasted Jizo’s ‘original teriyaki chicken’ sushi, they were delectably warm and absolutely melted in my mouth. What immediately struck me was that the teriyaki chicken pieces were juicy, tender, and well sauced. They obviously cooked the chicken to order, quite unlike the standard fare that you get at 'express' sushi places where the chicken would have been cooked early in the day and left sitting around to dry out. Also, unlike standard teriyaki chicken sushi rolls, which are usually made up of some chicken, carrots, and cucumber rolled up in rice and a layer of seaweed, these were cute little domes of perfectly cooked vinegar rice, with a generous dab of creamy avocado 'dressing' cushioning the succulent teriyaki chicken topping. Smooth, warm, deliciously divine! Every time I introduce someone to these works of art, the second they pop one in their mouths, I wait for the same inevitable pause, the widening of the eyes and the "Oh-My-God!" moment that I experienced. If you haven't already tried this, you must! There are four different varieties of this sushi – chicken, salmon, tuna, and tofu – with four different dressing options – avocado, sweet chilli, tartar and pumpkin. My favourites are the chicken and salmon with the avocado dressing.
You might think I'm just nit-picking here but the magic is in the details. In stark contrast to the mushy, clumpy, and/or burnt rice that I am sometimes served at other establishments, the rice served at Jizo has been perfect every single time. With their sushi rice, specifically, they have struck the fine balance between tasteless and 'can't-taste-anything-else'. You will immediately notice the sour-ish and almost faintly sweet presence of the rice's flavour, but it quickly blends with the taste of the other components of the sushi and becomes the lovely accentuating backdrop to the headliner.
Some of my other favourite dishes are the delicious karaage chicken, the grilled kushiage tofu (with a tasty caramelised coating of either teriyaki or miso sauce) and the lovely, refreshing salmon, avocado and mango sushi. Most of the mains come with a salad with four dressing options, i.e. Jizo mayonnaise, spicy miso, garlic, or original, which are all great. Whenever I order the karaage chicken, however, I opt for the Jizo mayonnaise dressing because I like dipping the lovely crisp, tasty, succulent chicken in it, even though it comes with plain mayonnaise. If you’re thinking that Jizo sounds like it's far more expensive than the average Japanese restaurant here – it's not. The prices on their menu are actually about the same as the other Japanese places, and cheaper than some, and that is why it’s my favourite Japanese restaurant in Dunedin.
