Whistling Sisters Beer Co

Rating: 3

We ate lunch here in July 2023.

Arancini balls
Fried chicken
Bread with dips
Braised beef in butternut bread

Whistling Sisters serves their meals tapas style - food comes out whenever its ready, and its made for sharing, which we love. We definitely looked down on our neighbouring table who ordered one plate each and absolutely refused to share, even though two of the dudes had bought large charcuterie platters. Weird.

We ordered our four dishes off the main menu, which had ample choice. However we were disappointed to later learn by watching another table be seated that there were two other menus (one brunch and a special one for Matariki) that our waitress didn’t even offer us. For shame!

The food was mostly good. The bread was fresh and warm with pleasant hummus and a mustardy as dipping sauce. The braised beef in butternut bread is really a taco, which was unexpected but yummy. As a single taco in a thick shell, it was a little hard to share.

The chicken wings were an entire wing, from shoulder to phalanx. Practically, this was a bit of a problem. They were very liberally sauced, so pulling apart the wing to eat it was one of our messiest experiences to date. The chicken itself was lovely and moist, with crispy skin, and the sauce had great flavour.

The arancini was the worst offering. It had done everything right - good presentation, crispy, nice texture on the rice without clagginess - except it was practically flavourless. According to the menu the flavours were capsicum, parmesan and squid ink with a wasabi mayo. In reality, you could see but not taste the squid ink, the capsicum was a single micro-sliver that was really a garnish atop the ball, the parmesan was barely detectable, and the wasabi mayo completely non-wasabi.