Review Pine House Korean And Japanese Restaurant - Auckland Central

My first (and definitely not my last) Korean Cuisine dining experience at Pine House Korean Restaurant, Mokaia Rd, Birkenhead. The menu was vast with so many share options we decided to hit several mains and a couple of entrees. Price was excellent and so was the food, very happy crew of 5 celebrating one of the teams birthdays! Keen to revisit with an even more bigger crew! Awesome service and authentic atmosphere.

Passing by after attending a business meeting. Decided to give it a try. Second day Auckland under red traffic light. No one dine in the restaurant. Very quiet. Decided to do takeaway as well. Acceptable food. Not fancy. Place look old and need some improvement. Operate by two old couples. Friendly. I think some restaurants need time to recover from the COVID outbreak.

Good authentic Korean food, been in the area by the same owner for years and it is Owner-operator. Good values and selections from the menu. They open everyday include public holidays, close on Tuesday. Very busy on weekends, takes group booking. The place is showing its age but cosy to sit in. Ample free parking out in front or nearby. This is a popular and established Korean restaurant on the Shore. Highly recommended to try it out.

We've been to a few Korean restaurants over the years but this place is the best by far. They serve our favourite side dishes (other Korean places don't serve the potatoe often) hence why we come back. Awesome customer service, friendly and welcoming. Food is on point and we always have the beef and pork.

I like how we got served a generous helping of side dishes. I ordered the omelet rice, and would have personally wanted the egg on top to be made more like a traditional omelet and a less salty sauce to be used, but it was overall okay and if I go back to the restaurant, I'll try one of the soups instead.

Our first lunch for 2023 just after a hike , good food and friendly service byob.

Good variety of side dishes. Its also very cozy and homelike. Owners are lovely people and are never stingy about giving refills. I do feel that the quality of the ingredients has deteriorated recently. Used to be 5 stars for me.

My favourite restaurant at Birkenhead. Portion is always generous with affordable price, all the dishes that I have tried here are heart-warming and taste great! ❤️

Love the beef rib soup and fried chicken ❤️

Cute little homely restaurant with homely food. Ambience is not modern but the food was yummy and good portion size too . And the couple running it is lovely and sweet. If you are near the birkenhead area, pop in and try their food. Don't judge the restaurant based on the interior or the location. Go with an open mind and you will enjoy the food. They don't have Soju but the man told my partner its BYO and pointed him to the liquor store across the street. Overall we enjoyed our lunch and my partner got to have his cold beer 😊

Lovely little place in the neighbourhood. Side dishes were good too.

Good food and low price，really nice appetizer

By far our favourite Korean bbq restaurant. We are often dining in here and it never fails us. Best kimchi ever ❤️ and beautiful husband and wife duo ☺️

Delicious and affordable food. Great service. Heaps of side dishes

Delicious, authentic.Korean fare. Solid pine slab tables. The spicy squid is top notch!

Clean environment, friendly staff and lovely Korean cuisine, wanted to try something different away from the normal western cuisine I've always eaten so a culinary cultural exposure and experience of this sort was well worth it. The presentation was nice. No garnish or bells and whistles as you usually see in European style restaurants yet made up for that in flavor and texture

Favorite go to korean restaurants. Order the BBQ flatfish and the Spicy beef soup. The side dishes are amazing!

Would not recommend. Ordered teriyaki chicken to takeaway. Asked if it came with vegetables and told yes. It doesn’t. Doesn’t even taste like teriyaki has some odd flavour to it and the chicken bits are full of bone and cartilage and barely edible. Would avoid. Also the prices have gone up than what is on the menu. <br/>

I always come here with my partner & have never had a bad experience, the meals however have definetly shrunk in size which was quite disappointing as the prices have risen also. still won’t stop us coming back though! Food is amazing. 😍

We have lived in Birkenhead for 12 years and we have only just discovered this place and what a find! It's not pretentious but the food has been fantastic.  The owners are super friendly and the dishes are out in super quick time. Recommended are BBQ squid, BBQ beef and the seafood pancake. This will be a regular place for us from now on.

I love this place 😍😍. The food is always on point and the owners are lovely. When you order a main you get a selection of sides that they top up for free and every single one is amazing. It's a hidden Lil gem but once you find it you never forget it! Yum yum and yum 😚😚

A cute little restaurant & one of my favourite places to eat on the North Shore! Great service, good sized portions & free complimentary sides (including extra if requested) ☺️ BBQ squid & pork are a winner! Best Korean I’ve had too 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Have been their regular customer over years, our favorite dishes are beef soup and teriyaki chicken, these two are must order dishes and their cold dishes are yummy as always!

45 dollars for two? No i don't think so. 15 dollar each.<br/> Reasonable price and yummy food. My favorite Korean takeaway. Some of food is a little fusion between Chinese and Korean thou. Try seafood pan cake.

Haven't been here in a while so we decided to drop in. It's the same we place we remember this to be, mom and pop operation, good food, reasonably price. <br/><br/>I got the bbq flat fish while rest of the family settled with bbq pork plus we threw in the spicy beef soup for the middle. Extra rice all around. As usual food was great.

Best Korean place I've ever been to the banchan side dishes are amazing and the bibimbap and BBQ beef is amazing! Never found Korean BBQ that has lived up to it

We ordered, BBQ pork, vegetable fried rice, and Teriyaki Tofu. <br/><br/>There were a number of people dining in when we came but the food didnt take a long time to come out. First came the side dishes and we were adventurous enough on that day to try all of those and we weren't disappointed. We quite liked all those side dishes, they were yummy!<br/><br/>When the main dishes arrived, that was when we had quite disappointed look in our faces. The BBQ pork looked like kimchi (it was red all over, although not spicy). it was alright, I just kinda wish that it wasnt all fat and thinly sliced. Since I dont really eat fat, I had to keep cutting it and was probably left with eating maybe 1" of lean meat. The teriyaki tofu looked the same as the BBQ pork, not teriyaki at all so I seriously had this ?????? Look on my face. There was no point asking the staff so we just ate it anyway. The fried rice was so-so was well, nothing really much to add.<br/><br/>Overall, this place was alright. While this place has "Japanese" with its name, I doubt what they serve is Japanese food. It was more of like Japanese food with a Korean twist (lol). I would .... mmmm-maybe come back but will definitely order other dishes.

Best Korean I've ever had! Can't seem to find anything to beat it. Have been here so many times will never stop going. Teriyaki chicken, BBQ squid are my favourite. $5 pancakes are delicious too!

We ordered Japanese dishes, but somehow the food came out tasting like Chinese. We wondered until the chef/cook came. He was chinese. Food didn't taste authentic at all. Quite disappointed

We haven't been here for a while. Nothing has changed, food is still very good. <br/><br/>Same couple runs the place. Love the sides they give. This time around I ordered the fish and it was excellent. <br/>

Loooooooove the food here!! Korean and Japanese food are my favorite cuisines!! Most times i just go there to eat the side dishes..and leave my main dish untill my side dishes are all gone. The best side dishes I've tasted!! People are great!

Seriously, if your looking for a good Korean BBQ house definitely stop here. I've been coming here approx seven years and the food has always been consistently good as there is only one woman cooking. The husband and wife are so friendly. This is the BEST KOREAN you can ever get plus for your money. I've tried many Korean BBQ houses and this place comes out on top.

The owner are very kind. I love the food here especially it's sweet and sour pork. Love the ddokbukki as well. Side dishes are very delicious.

We are a regular to this place. It's a nice little restaurant without too much decoration, good for a cheap family meal. The food has always been consistent (good quantity) and the people are always very polite, but as others mentioned, they don't seem to speak much english. Great for a cold winter night for something hot and authentic!

Excellent food so much to choose from never a fail.<br/>Been coming here for years you know your going to get the same quality next time as theres only 1 cook the 2 couple are very friendly the best Korean in Auckland and ive been to many.

My partner and I decided that we would try our luck at a Hong-Kong-style restaurant and decided to check out this little joint. Upon arrival the place was packed (a good sign). The windows were almost covered in menu options, which on one hand helps those who can not understand the language but on the other hand takes away from the presentation of the restaurant.<br/><br/>The decor was a little confusing and like the windows, was plastered with menu options. The seating was perfect with plenty of room between ourselves and the other diners.<br/>In relation to food quality I have to say that my meal was the best of everything we had ordered, it was nice, tender and not too oily. My partner's on the other hand did not live up to either of our expectations; it had bones throughout the dish, exceptionally oily and oddly chewy which is something that you shouldn't expect with chicken.<br/><br/>Moving on the service was at first amazing, as we approached the restaurant we were immediately seated and the table was cleared efficiently, although for hygiene reasons I would have been happy waiting a minute or two so they could do it properly (not just with a used serviette and a wet dish cloth). After looking over the menu briefly we were served and the order was taken down perfectly and came out in a perfect fashion. however after this, the service quality dropped significantly and asking for things such as water required us to yell for attention which is something that we really didn't feel comfortable doing.<br/><br/>Then on departure we had to wait 5-10 mins for the waiter who had forgotten that we had asked for takeaway boxes for the remainder of our meal.<br/><br/>Please note; this restaurant is BYO (optional) so if you need to take your own drinks do so before arriving otherwise there is a liquor store up the road. They only serve water which is from a water cooler and out of 500 ml plastic water bottle. Not too impressed there...<br/><br/>All in all the ambiance was great, the people were humble and always smiling, the place although visually confusing was amazing given the small space and the food was a 50/50 toss up, by my observation and not my experience I can see why so many people go back.<br/><br/>This experience hasn't put us off at all, I think it may have just delayed our return.

My hubby and I are both regular visitors.<br/>We are happy about the consistant food quality, qauntity, flavour, service and price. would like to recommend as a great alternative to KFC etc for quick and satisfying meal<br/><br/>Hubby loves Bib 'n' Bob

not a romantic place, the front of the shp is unattractive BUT the food is good. very cheap. <br/>average meal was 9 to 11 dollar and ou get alot of food!<br/>flavouris good and i would definatley go back. owners did not speak much english, but, enough to get your order right, friendly and very smiley. <br/><br/>alot of slow speaking and finger pointing at themenu would be needed, but who cares its a good place:)