Mecca Cafe, Viaduct & The Occidental on Vulcan Lane

Last night I met up with my two MR group mates, since it would probably be our last chance catching up. Tomo is heading to Queenstown for the fourth time this year (!!), and then will disappear to Tokyo where he will probably be a stuffed suit commuting to work everyday, and Kyung Eun, well, will while her summer away in summer school (!) and probably tell me all about the random documentaries she will download over the next three months. Also, it served as Kyung Eun's belated 21st and end of exams celebration. A good dinner was much deserved!

We strolled along the Viaduct, checking out the various menus. We finally decided on Mecca. It had a comfortable crowd of diners outside and everyone looked like they were enjoying their meal. Attentive waiters promptly seated the three of us inside.


For starters we had half a dozen fresh pacific oysters with a tomato pomegranate sauce to share. The oysters were fresh, but I wished they were a bit more juicy and succulent.

I decided on the beef iskendaar: traditional Turkish dish of roasted sirloin strips on grilled turkish bread with a rich tomato and yoghurt sauce served with rice pilaf. It was much tastier than it looks lol (to my delight). I thought the turkish bread would come as a whole piece by itself, but it took the form of a bed of croutons, and soaked up the sauces very nicely with a slight crunch. The beef was done nicely too, the three of us agreed (Tomo stole another piece).


Kyung Eun went with the baked chicken: whole baked chicken breast stuffed with pine nuts, spinach, mozzarella, served on kumara mash with cream and pernod sauce. I had a small bit and liked how tender the chicken was, and the sauce wasn't too overpowering.

Tomo had the lamb shank: slow simmered with tomato, rosemary and thyme served on garlic mash with caramelised onions. I tried a tiny bit as well, not enough to comment on how it tastes, but Tomo seemed to really enjoy it.

After each of us had our fill of our individual choice of meat, we decided a walk would be necessary to aid digestion. I suggested Vulcan lane for drinks, and so it was off to the iconic Occidental Belgian Bar.

Kyung Eun with her Kriek (cherry) beer. "This is so yummy!"

The rest of the night we drank beer and admired Tomo's SLR camera and the photos he has of his extensive NZ traveling. Kyung Eun has a DSLR but she doesn't know how to properly use the functions lol. My Lumix point-and-shoot suffered low self-esteem at this point, but it's okay.. I'll upgrade in good time!


So the grand not-so-distant-future plan is Kyung Eun and I will make plans to go to Fiji and get a fabulous tan, and then visit Tomo since he has a spare bedroom in central Tokyo.

We'll see how that turns out lol.