AUCKLAND'S VIADUCT HARBOUR
Our favourite restaurant locally in the Viaduct is SOUL. We never fail to get an excellent meal here and find the service warm and friendly. When in Auckland we eat at SOUL at least once a week.
We keep hearing how good EURO is but we have had bad experiences there on most times we have dined. Last time we had a terrible table with one of the two seats facing the wall; I really object to paying top price for a view of a wall, especially in such an environment like the Viaduct. Additionally my fish was dry and tasteless, the wine by the glass more than over priced and the service slow. In my view EURO is just not in the same league as SOUL.
We found KERMEDEC'S brasserie to be a good middle of the road restaurant with the food tasty, the service attentive and the prices reasonable. It has excellent views and whilst not a favourite is somewhere we would go to again.
O'HAGANS is a pub restaurant that is well positioned in the heart of The Viaduct and is usually "buzzing" with a party atmosphere. We found the food good and the service warm and friendly. An excellent place for watching those "Big Games" whilst enjoying a drink and pub style food.
PORTOFINO is where we have had two of our worst eating out experiences. We had a disastrous meal at their Mission Bay venue where we waited for nearly an hour for a horrible meal and had an equally bad experience one Sunday lunch time at the Viaduct. Although there were only two other tables with guests when we arrived we waited over 45 minutes and still our single course meal did not arrive. I called the waitress over and warned her we were leaving in 5 minutes if our food was not served. The meal still failed to appear so we went to pay for the drinks and leave; only to be presented with a bill for the non appearing food as well, which of course I refused to pay. We were then "set on" by an aggressive chap who claimed to be the owner and became the recipients of much abuse. I gave him enough money for the drinks and advised him to call the Police if he wasn't happy. He declined to have a Police presence but continued to abuse us as we walked towards our apartment just 100 metres away. Needless to say PORTOFINO is off our restaurant list. 
We are keen on Japanese food and consider ourselves very lucky to have SOTO nearby in Ponsonby. We always get an excellent meal here and find the staff, especially the head lady, delightful. Highly recommended.
PREGO has always been good but on our two most recent visits found the service and food had gone up to an even higher level. On one visit we had our three grandchildren in our group and were most impressed with the way in which the staff catered for us all and made sure children and adults were served quickly. The tables were cleared regularly to ensure no surplus objects for children to accidentally knock over were on hand and generally the staff catered for the seven of us without a hitch. We had great time and congratulate PREGO on that extra effort to serve families.
THE EDEN CLOAK ROOM is a new experience for us. We went there to see Daniel and Johnny, two great musicians who belted out one top song after another. The food and service here is very fine and the place has a good feel. We certainly will go here again on our next Auckland visit
