I’m not sure there’s ever been a business in Auckland as tightly associated with a suburb as Paradise is with Sandringham. When I first moved there around 2014, it was just another Indian place in Sandringham village that I was keen to try out, especially since a cab driver had really gone into bat for their Afghani kebab, informing me that a life lived without it was only half a life. Since then Paradise has taken over several adjacent shopfronts, mucked around with various other formats (RIP Fusion Pizza, you were magnificent), but always stuck to Sandringham and always, always growing to the extent that when the visualisations of the Auckland light-rail-to-airport project were released it was laughable that the future Sandringham they envisioned wasn’t just one big Paradise. This continuing growth and the mutual dedication between Paradise and Sandringham is possible only because it was always excellent and has somehow remained so all this time. If you haven’t been, go; and if you’re going, get the Afghani kebab — a life lived without it is only half a life.