Kind — EAT IT AUCKLAND

'Have you seen The Game Changers?’

‘Did you see that documentary about high-performance vegan athletes on Netflix?’

‘Game Changers. Watch it!’

There isn’t anybody, anywhere, with a Netflix account (or sponging off of someone else’s) who hasn’t watched, heard of, or contemplated watching, The Game Changers. A fairly eloquent and convincing documentary on the benefits of, and why you should adopt, a plant-based diet, I finished watching it terrified of the supposed inflammatory response being triggered by all the animal-based protein I was consuming, and how much water it took to make a hamburger. Though far from a high, or even middling-performance athlete myself, I started thinking about how I could adopt a plant-based lifestyle of my own. I am a doctor after all. Any perceived long-term health benefits is of interest to me. Meat, I could probably give up. But cheese? Cheese is something I’d struggle to leave behind. Eating out has always been a domain of animosity for vegan and plant-based eaters, where few restaurants are completely plant-based and offer extremely limited plant-based options.

*Pepperberry Patch non-alcoholic distilled cocktail*

There is however an eatery that stands out in its commitment to promoting a plant-based lifestyle. Kind is an all day eatery situated in the newish Morningside Precinct with a menu that is almost entirely vegan, and the food doesn’t suck. Kind is a gorgeous and light-filled space (which makes for excellent photo-taking conditions may I add) with tens of planter-baskets dangling from the roof, making it a semi-industrial hanging gardens of Babylon.

Kind really comes into its own in the evenings. Sharing plates is the style of eating they wish to convey, and many of the pasta dishes are so generous, one would struggle to finish it if left to their own devices. I first visited Kind with my vegan friend Sam, who had transitioned gradually from omnivore to pescatarian, then to vegetarian and eventually veganism long before The Game Changers had been made. He and I shared the jackfruit tostadas, broccolini with smoked peanut butter and mushroom tagliatelle. The jackfruit tostadas were a sort of deconstructed pizza, the base being formed by a crispy tortilla, topped with pulled jackfruit, iceburg lettuce, BBQ, chipotle sauce, cajun aioli, crushed peanuts and sprouts. They were light, refreshing mouthfuls, although not particularly complex in flavour, and a little unwieldy to eat. The grilled broccolini with smoked peanut butter, chilli, lemon and cashew were by contrast a knock out. A simple, classic triumvirate of broccolini, chilli and lemon, elevated by a lush, smoked paprika-rich peanut butter and little nuggets of chopped cashew. Both Sam and I were scraping every last bit of peanut butter we could find. It was so good, that on my second visit with my mum, I insisted we ordered the same.

The mushroom tagliatelle sounded so promising; leek, spinach, black garlic, herb broth, pine nuts and salsa verde. Ingredients with heaps of flavour, how could we go wrong? Unfortunately this dish was a let down. Although very generous in proportion, what we got was a rather large bowl of overcooked and as such stodgy noodles in a thin, bland sauce. All the black garlic and pine nuts in the world couldn’t save this dish. The mushrooms in the dish suffered a similar fate, like they’d been stewed slowly in a cold, overcrowded pan.

But that didn’t deter me from visiting a second time (in fact on the same day I’d watched The Game Changers). My mother, a strong believer of eating meat when you’re paying someone else to cook it, sniffed at the menu and said with suspicion “Is this a vegetarian restaurant?” Over discussing meat burrito vs. vegan burrito experiments and cloudy centrifuged plasma, mum’s skepticism was won over by the aforementioned charred broccolini and the butternut tortellini with green chilli, bell peppers, coconut cream, marjoram and cashew parmesan (her pick). The tortellini pasta was lovely and toothsome, enshrouding a light filling of butternut and capsicum puree. Almost romesco sauce-esque with a wonderful zip from the green chilli, it was served with a light-as-air coconut cream sauce and a salty, savoury sprinkling of cashew parmesan (although the latter was lacking the obvious funk of a good aged dairy-based parmesan). Having never tried zoodles before, I popped mum’s zoodle-cherry by ordering the zucchini spaghetti with roasted aubergine, provencal sauce and cashew parmesan. Another incredibly generous dish consisting of a small mountain of tangled zucchini strands bathed in a fragrant tomato sauce with wee pops of lusciously roasted eggplant (although we could have done with a few more bits of those) and chopped zucchini, with a salty kick from the cashew parmesan. This was a lighter dish than the tortellini and although not quite as impressive, was still a pleasure to eat and certainly dispelled some of the guilt that comes from eating two kinds of pastas in one meal.

*Zucchini spaghetti with eggplant, provencal sauce and cashew parmesan*

As proponents of a plant-based lifestyle will tell you, although it seemed like I’d eaten a lot, I left dinner feeling light and awake. And I didn’t feel hungry an hour or so later. Maybe this feeling was a real phenomenon. Maybe it’s a placebo effect (which is also a real phenomenon actually). Or maybe it’s the moral superiority one feels knowing no animals were harmed in the course of making their dinner, as one undoes the damage from years of eating fried chicken. Either way, Kind is a place for those already enlightened by the benefits of a plant-based diet, and those wishing to explore it some more.

Kind
16 McDonald Street
Morningside
Auckland

Ph. (09) 869 8765
@kind.morningside