Spring Kitchen Japanese Cuisine sits on Allum Street in Kohimarama, bringing a generous slice of the Japanese kitchen — and then some — to Auckland's eastern bays. The menu runs well beyond the usual takeaway suspects: donburi rice bowls, a Japanese curry the team cooks for nine hours, bento sets served with miso soup, handmade dumplings, bao buns, sushi rolls and sashimi, poke bowls, banh mi, noodle soups and salads, and yaki stir-fried noodles. Milkshakes, iced coffees and mojito-style drinks round it out.
Katsu is the house signature. The chicken katsu don leads the top sellers, with a choice of teriyaki, spicy, sweet Korean, miso or wasabi creamy sauce, and the same crumbed goodness appears across the curries, bentos, bao and poke bowls. Dumpling lovers get five styles to choose from — original crispy, pan-seared, creamy wasabi, braised pork with sriracha mayo, and spicy sriracha — eight pieces at a time.
Everything runs through the online menu: order ahead for pickup at the counter or get it delivered — fees apply — across a long list of Auckland suburbs, from the CBD and Remuera out to Howick, Pakuranga and Botany Downs. Payments are made securely online with Visa, Mastercard or PayPal, the site works in English and Chinese, and the kitchen holds a 4.1 rating on its ordering page.
Order online from Spring Kitchen Japanese Cuisine and you quickly get the sense this is a kitchen with a plan: crumbed, sauced, boxed and on its way. The shop sits at 138 Allum Street in Kohimarama, and its menu — rated 4.1 on its ordering site — stretches from donburi and nine-hour curry to handmade gyoza, bao buns, poke bowls and even banh mi. Pickup and delivery both run off the same online menu, with secure payments and late hours, from 11:30am until 11pm most days.
Ask what to order and the answer is almost always the Chicken Katsu Don, the shop's top seller. It arrives as crumbed chicken over rice, and the real decision is the sauce: teriyaki, spicy, sweet Korean, miso or wasabi creamy. That same katsu framework runs through the whole menu — pork katsu don with teriyaki or miso, prawn tempura don, fish crumbed don, karaage chicken ball don and a crispy salmon don that adds a roasted sesame dressing to the lineup. Prefer your katsu without the rice base? It appears across the poke bowl section alongside salmon poke and tuna tataki poke, and in bao form with peanut satay and chashu sauce.
The Japanese curry here is a point of pride: it's the kitchen's own recipe, cooked for nine hours. You can have it with chicken katsu, 24-hour pork, tempura prawn, tofu or crumbed fish. If you want the full set-meal treatment, the bento section pairs the same proteins with miso soup — chicken, pork, prawn, tofu, fish or chargrilled chicken.
The dumplings come eight pieces at a time in five styles: the original crispy gyoza (deep fried, vege or prawn), pan-seared, a creamy wasabi version, braised pork dumplings dressed with sriracha mayo and shallot, and a spicy sriracha take. Bao buns follow a similar path — crispy chicken, crispy pork, lemongrass chicken, tofu, grilled pork or pulled braised pork with sriracha mayo and coleslaw.
Beyond that, the menu keeps widening. There are spring rolls (chicken, pork, beef or vegan) and fresh summer rolls, sushi rolls from chicken katsu and teriyaki through to salmon, ikura and inari, and sashimi by the slice count — New Zealand king salmon in six or twelve pieces, or a mixed platter. Banh mi come loaded the classic way with eggs mayo, pate, pickle and cucumber. Noodle soups include tonkotsu and a kimchi tonkotsu, noodle salads pair rice noodles with lemongrass chicken, grilled pork or crispy pork belly, and the yaki section stir-fries noodles with spring onion, cabbage, carrots and bonito. Sides cover karaage chicken, takoyaki, tempura prawn and kumara fries with homemade aioli — and, because this is a kitchen that refuses to be pigeonholed, milkshakes, iced coffees and mojito-style drinks in dragon fruit lemonade, strawberry and mango passion fruit.
Spring Kitchen is built for the online order. The site runs in English or Chinese, takes secure payment by Visa, Mastercard or PayPal, and lets you pre-order for pickup at a set time or book a delivery. Delivery fees apply, but the reach is impressive: the suburb list runs from Auckland CBD, Parnell, Newmarket and Remuera through Mission Bay, St Heliers and Glendowie out to Ellerslie, Panmure, Pakuranga, Howick, Botany Downs and Half Moon Bay, with stops as far afield as Devonport, Ponsonby and Sandringham.
Hours are consistent and late: 11:30am to 11pm Monday to Friday, and 12:30pm to 11pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Whether it's a single katsu don on a lunch break, a nine-hour curry on a cold evening, or a table full of dumplings, bao and takoyaki for the family, the formula is the same — order ahead, and dinner is crumbed, sauced and ready.