Red Brick Parnell

This is my boyfriend, Jason. Despite his expression, he is actually quite excited to be here.

No, he is not my hostage.

He is the biggest fan of my blog. It means that he gets to tag along to restaurants, food shows and be a guinea pig for my cooking experiments (although they don't always come out that great).

Red Brick

Awesome Cork and Cap Tables

Tonight we visit the, aptly named, Red Brick restaurant in Parnell. It has a warm atmosphere and the staff were very friendly and attentive without being intrusive. We are both very impressed by the interior decor and spend a few minutes ooohhhing and aaahhhing over the stylish coffee tables in the bar area.

Ice Cold Coke and Orange Juice

We start off with some ice cold drinks while we wait for our meals and enjoy the light music playing in the background. We also notice the chair for naughty patrons..

But not really

..I was just kidding..

Hand Cut Fries with Aioli -$7.50

 We started off with some large hand cut fries which were served with a generous dollop of aioli sauce. It may seem unusual for me to get so excited about seemingly regular potato fries, but these were very moreish -more so than regular fries. They had a very thin, crunchy outer layer with the creamiest centers you could ever imagine!

Free Range Chicken Breast wrapped in Streaky Bacon -$29.50

Our mains arrived shortly after we finished the fries and we were quite pleased with our portion sizes. I immediately fell in love with my chicken dish -who wouldn't love a plate of their favourite meat wrapped in their second favourite meat? The chicken was cooked to perfection and filled with a mustard & gruyere stuffing and then wrapped in crispy crispy bacon. I'm not usually a fan of coleslaw because the vinegary makes makes me think it's been left in the sun for a few hours but the Red Brick fixed that problem for me -just put aioli in it instead! The red cabbage and nut slaw was fresh, crunchy and the garlicky scent of the aioli went perfectly with the toasted nuts.

Potato Gnocchi -$27.50

"I'm going to be honest, the cherry tomatoes are the best part of my meal" said Jason and, after tasting a small portion myself, I have to agree -it was a little bland. Neither of us have had gnocchi before but we were pretty sure it's meant to have a little more flavour -perhaps a sauce to go with it. We were quite satisfied once we figured that the sauce and salad from my dish went very well with his.

The Bar

Whilst dining, I spent a good amount of time staring at the tapas board in the next room. Despite the fact I was eating, I could literally feel myself getting hungrier and hungrier as I eyed each dish. I'm definitely coming back soon -watch out, tempura scallops!

The Menu

Aside from the slightly bland gnocchi issue (which was very quickly solved) we were both very impressed with the Red Brick. It has a lovely atmosphere, has ample parking despite being close to town and the food is exquisite yet reasonably priced. It even has a park across the road where you can lay down if you get too full (yes, we did this).

The Red Brick can be found at 46 Parnell Rd, Parnell, Auckland, New Zealand




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