Fusion Takeaway on Peel Street in Gisborne Central is a Thai-led takeaway with a menu that stretches well beyond a single cuisine. The kitchen opens at 11am every day and cooks through the evening — until 8:30pm Tuesday to Saturday, and 8pm on Sunday and Monday — serving Thai curries, laksa, noodle soups, rice plates, salads and wraps for pickup or delivery.
The Thai side of the menu covers chicken green curry and panang curry with steamed rice, spicy prawn tom yum soup, chicken cashew nut stir fry, spicy basil stir-fries with crispy pork or crispy chicken, and larb — the northeast Thai chicken mince salad with roasted ground rice and fresh herbs. A specials board adds dishes like stir-fried crispy pork with watercress or bok choy, and Hainanese-style chicken with ginger garlic rice and soup on the side.
Everything else is built on choice: pick crispy pork, crispy chicken, grilled yellow chicken, satay chicken, crumbed chicken with lemon sauce or marinated pork, then take it on steamed jasmine rice, on egg fried rice, with salad, or in a wrap. Entrees run from curry puffs, green curry puffs and money bags to fresh and fried spring rolls, gyoza and wonton-wrapped quail eggs, with desserts, sides, sauces and drinks to round out the order.
Fusion Takeaway sits on Peel Street in Gisborne Central, and the name does a fair job of describing the menu: Thai cooking at its core, served up in every format a proper takeaway should master. Doors open at 11am seven days a week, and the kitchen runs through the evening — until 8:30pm Tuesday to Saturday and 8pm on Sundays and Mondays — with pickup and delivery both available through the online ordering site. The kitchen's answer to indecision is breadth: the same core proteins reappear across rice plates, fried rice, salads and wraps, so nobody at the table has to compromise.
The heart of the menu is unmistakably Thai. Green curry and panang curry come built on chicken with bamboo shoot and long bean — the green curry adds eggplant and basil — each served with steamed rice. Prawn tom yum soup delivers the hot-and-sour profile with red onion, mushrooms and tomato, while the chicken cashew nut stir fry teams its protein with spring onion, dried whole chillies and capsicum.
Head to Thailand's northeast and you reach larb: chicken mince tossed with roasted ground rice, red onion, spring onion, coriander and dried chilli, served with steamed rice. Crispy pork and crispy chicken each get a spicy basil treatment, and the laksa is the menu's great crossover bowl — crispy chicken over noodles with a boiled egg, fried wonton, bean sprouts and spring onion. Spice is flagged honestly: the curries, tom yum, larb and basil stir-fries all carry the warning, while grilled, crumbed and satay plates keep things milder.
A specials board runs alongside. It has featured stir-fried crispy pork with watercress or with bok choy and cabbage, a sweet and sour stir fry loaded with cucumber, tomato, onion, capsicum, pineapple and spring onion, and two Hainanese-style chicken plates — steamed thigh or deep-fried marinated thigh over ginger garlic rice, with soup on the side and a special ginger sauce for the steamed version.
The rest of the menu works like a choose-your-own-format exercise. Choose a protein — crispy pork, crispy chicken, grilled yellow chicken, satay chicken, crumbed chicken with lemon sauce or marinated pork — then pick the vehicle: on steamed jasmine rice, on egg fried rice, as a full meal with rice and salad, in a Thai-style salad, or folded into a wrap. Pulled pork with sweet and sour and a hint of mint sauce rounds out the lineup.
Salads lean Thai, with a spicy chicken salad sitting beside crispy chicken, grilled chicken, crumbed chicken and marinated pork versions. Noodle fans get both broth and wok: crispy chicken or crispy pork in noodle soup or stir-fried through noodles, plus crispy and steamed prawn wonton soups finished with bok choy, sprouts, fried garlic and spring onion. And for the nights when only chicken and chips will do, there's crispy, crumbed, satay and grilled yellow chicken served alongside chips.
The entree list reads like a party platter waiting to happen: curry puffs and green curry puffs, money bags, crispy vegetarian spring rolls, Vietnamese fresh spring rolls, pork and chicken gyoza, and deep-fried wonton-wrapped quail eggs. The mix pack pulls it together — twelve pieces spanning curry puffs, green curry puffs, fried spring rolls and money bags. Sides cover chips, kumara chips, steamed jasmine rice, soup and a garden salad with lemon dressing, and the sauce line-up runs from sweet chilli and hot chilli to satay and peanut.
Dessert is short but appealing: cookie and cream cheesecake or tiramisu cake, with cans and 1.5-litre bottles of the usual soft drinks to go with.
Everything runs through Fusion Takeaway's online ordering site — build your order, then choose pickup or delivery. Prefer to call? The number is 06 929 1288. Whether it's a quick meat-on-rice lunch, a laksa to go or a twelve-piece entree spread for the table, the Peel Street kitchen turns it out across lunch and dinner, seven days a week, with the later 8:30pm close from Tuesday through Saturday.