Wishbone, Auckland Central

I don’t generally review weekday lunch venues, as there’s only so much you can say about sandwiches, but I think Wishbone deserves a mention, for having served me one of the worst lunches I’ve had in my four months of working in the CBD. To be fair, I’ve had sandwiches from here a number of times in the past and they’ve generally been a good average; fresh, well-filled and so on, and not disastrously expensive. The hot food looks tempting, and last week I was eyeing the ‘Chicken and Chorizo Paella’ hungrily, but for some reason went to the sandwich display instead.

This week I once again ignored what I’m learning are pretty good instincts, and ordered the paella. I’m regretting it right now, as I’m also regretting passing up the opportunity presented by numerous bins on the walk from Vulcan Lane to my office.

True, for $7 I’m not expecting miracles. From a metal dish kept under a heat lamp all day, I’m not expecting rice that’s not overcooked. However, budgets and cooking facilities don’t make up for a box of mushy rice and stringy chicken with so much aggressive seasoning it put me in mind of a washing up liquid I once bought, all acrid chemically rosemary and stinging salt. This is what I imagine Milton Keynes tastes like.

Let’s talk for a moment about the Chorizo. I have been living in Auckland for nine months now, and have been on the lookout for real cooking Chorizo (actually, real Chorizo of any kind would do), with no results to show so far. My luck did not turn at Wishbone, whose paella actually contained several wafer-thin slices of what seemed to be a sort of highly processed pork sausage, seasoned with a powerful chilli pepper of some kind, again artificial and tasteless beyond the burn. Grim beyond belief.

So I say this to whoever calls themselves a cook at Wishbone, and to the butchers of New Zealand in general – Chorizo is not just a spicy pork sausage, and to sell a stick of processed, acridly spiced MRM as such is criminal.

Anyway, my rant about sub-standard pork produce aside, the sandwiches are acceptable at Wishbone, but the hot food seems pretty dire. Avoid.

1 Vulcan Lane
Auckland 1010
+64 (0) 9 368 5044