\n to please not take drugs at the upcoming social<\/a>. It was such a perfect snapshot of middle-class parenting in the 21st century: we\u2019re happy to spend Saturday night raising money for a new playground, but only if we can occasionally sneak out and take pingers in the bogs.\n <\/p>\n
With all this disposable cash sloshing around, you might think having a couple of decent restaurants spring up was an inevitability, but there are plenty of wealthy suburbs where that hasn\u2019t happened. There\u2019s no equivalent of Ragtag at the Grey Lynn Shops, nor is there much to write home about in the whole of Pt Chev. The people of Westmere should be very grateful they now have at least four places to sit down for a quality dinner, and my message to them is simple: if you want these places to stick around, unroll some banknotes and support them. <\/p>\n
Hocho is the newest arrival, taking over a spot to the right of Westmere Butcher that, as far as I know, has never really fired. Hocho was empty when we arrived and I did consider wandering over to review the buzzing E-Sarn Rocket instead, but the menu looked good here, so I decided to roll the dice. I\u2019m so glad I did. <\/p>\n
Hocho’s cold salmon ramen. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
The first thing to report is that I have found the perfect dish for Auckland\u2019s uncomfortable hot weather. As I write, Metservice is predicting these 28C blue-sky days will soon be replaced by driving rain, so there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll barely remember wanting to cool down by the time you read this, but for the record, Hocho\u2019s chilled ramen (literally called \u201cThe Coldest Ramen in This Universe\u201d) is one of the city\u2019s great summer dishes. For $26, you will be served a bowl of cold noodles topped with extraordinarily appealing delights: generous slices of raw salmon, salad vegetables, fish roe, and a \u201cshiso granita\u201d that both keeps the other ingredients cool and tastes great (icy, zingy, grapefruit-esque) on its own. According to the menu, it\u2019s served with a sesame-chicken broth but it\u2019s more about the sticky coating on the noodles, an almost mayo-like dressing that keeps you coming back for mouthful after mouthful. <\/p>\n
Honestly, Westmere, I would wander up to Hocho for that dish alone. <\/p>\n
Before continuing, I should point out that this is not yet a restaurant in the traditional sense. It seems to me that the chef\/owner (ex-Azabu, Tobi) has spent every dollar on getting this kitchen open. You can understand the plan – make cold ramen so good that you get queues out the door then worry about things like building the bathrooms later. It\u2019ll just require a little patience and understanding from you in these early days, when you order from the counter, glasses of water don\u2019t seem to be a thing and the only design intervention is a tiny origami swan on which your chopsticks rest. <\/p>\n
They also don\u2019t serve booze so for now you\u2019ll have to find somewhere else to preload before parent-teacher interviews, but chef Kenta tells me there is a liquor licence in the plan once he\u2019s sorted something called a \u201cbuilding certificate\u201d (I\u2019m sure it\u2019s fine), so for now you should think of this as the place you go when you want to eat cleanly and wake up the next day without a sake hangover. <\/p>\n
Hocho is ‘not yet a restaurant in the traditional sense’. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
The sashimi plate is lovely \u2013 a small selection of four species, including hapuka, which I\u2019ve never eaten this way before. I think of it as more of a chunky, roasty sort of fish but it really works and I think you notice the almost imperceptibly sweet fleshy flavour more when it\u2019s sliced thin and unadorned than you do eating giant mouthfuls of the cooked stuff. <\/p>\n
Aside from that unexpected cold ramen (there\u2019s also a vegan version of it) the menu is mostly izakaya favourites but I feel (and perhaps the sober eating helps with this) that they are even more flavourful than usual here at Hocho. The agedashi tofu is a miracle of texture \u2013 light, deep-fried crumb and silken soy with a thickened broth which contains a surprise hit of citrus when you crunch down on little fine pieces of yuzu stirred into the mix. Even the best miso eggplant can sometimes feel a bit firm where the flesh meets the skin but here the whole bulb is halved, slathered and baked hard, every tiny fibre yielding into a sticky, savoury custard. Our final dish was a beef tataki, made with scotch fillet; that\u2019s a fibrous cut but there was no sign of chewiness thanks to clever knifework and careful grilling. <\/p>\n
The Miso eggplant, cold salmon ramen and Beef tataki on the menu at Japanese restaurant Hocho in Westmere. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
That Thai place across the road with the picnic table seating has a social chemistry about it that I\u2019m not sure Hocho will ever match. But this is really top-tier Japanese food, the ambience will only go in one direction and if you can get behind it now, you\u2019ll have one of Auckland\u2019s great neighbourhood restaurants to look forward to in the future. <\/p>\n
Address: 127 West End Rd, Westmere <\/p>\n
Contact: 022 310 9792, hocho.co.nz<\/p>\n
Reservations: Not accepted <\/p>\n
From the menu: sashimi $27, cold ramen (salmon) $26, beef tataki $24, miso eggplant $18, agedashi tofu $16 <\/p>\n
Score: 0-7 Steer clear. 8-12 Disappointing, give it a miss. 13-15 Good, give it a go. 16-18 Great, plan a visit. 19-20 Outstanding, don\u2019t delay.<\/p>\n
According to dining out editor Jesse Mulligan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jesse decided to roll the dice to eat at Hocho. He\u2019s so glad he did. Westmere. What a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4509,48901,160607,18432,6259,156,56684,6101,5420,160606,78,2537,5338,2538,111,139,69,3111,29547,38866,36097,17509,223,59452,15411],"class_list":{"0":"post-289312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-cold","9":"tag-decided","10":"tag-dice","11":"tag-did","12":"tag-door","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-glad","15":"tag-good","16":"tag-hes","17":"tag-hocho","18":"tag-in","19":"tag-jesse","20":"tag-makes","21":"tag-mulligan","22":"tag-new-zealand","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-out","26":"tag-queue","27":"tag-ramen","28":"tag-roll","29":"tag-so","30":"tag-the","31":"tag-westmere","32":"tag-youll"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}