NZ Kebab & Pizza House
Reviews · · · ·Rating: 2
We ate dinner here in February 2024.
Paneer iskender
Butter paneer pizza
NZ Kebab & Pizza house does Turkish food and pizzas (surprise, surprise), but with an Indian twist. We’ve never seen paneer iskender before, and were keen to give it a go. Tell you what, it was pretty good. The paneer went well with the sauces, with the sticky rice and with the salads. Halloumi is usually the cheese associated with Turkish food, and we are all for halloumi, but having tried both we’d say the paneer is just as good.
Shame about the pizza though. The butter paneer pizza, which is just their butter chicken pizza but with paneer instead of chicken, had some serious issues. Firstly, the amount of cheese was ridiculous. We like cheese as much as the next guy, but when it’s compromising the integrity of the dish, when it’s so laden with cheese that the slices are falling to pieces under the immense weight, then you’ve gone too far. The Fee-Rex used a knife and fork for the whole thing, a tragic sight. The other toppings were no bueno. There were tiny little pieces of capsicum and tomato, plus some raw red onion. They bought nothing to the occasion. Then there was the butter chicken sauce. Sweet heavens was it salty. The flavour, while reminiscent of a curry, was not enjoyable and some patches had too much sauce.
We were also disappointed to be served in takeaway containers. This restaurant very clearly encourages dine in. They have a huge dining area, lots of tables, far too many chairs (seriously, the four person table next to us had seven chairs!), and even had menus on the tables. Yet our iskender came out in a cardboard container, the pizza in a box, and we got two wooden sporks and one plastic knife. The fact that these implements could easily cut through the pizza was a further indictment upon its structure. It’s not hard to slide a pizza onto a plate. We propose that NZ Kebab & Pizza is costing itself more in disposable materials and paying to dispose of bulky pizza boxes than it would cost for some cheap plates and cutlery. And it would sure enhance the dining experience. Speaking of enhancing the dining experience, a shout out to our server who was truly delightful.