Try It Out

Three generations of family have been involved with the everyday operations of Try It Out, an Ōtāhuhu restaurant which opened in 1989. You can tell it’s sorta old school almost immediately from the koi pond outside at the restaurant’s entrance. Inside, it’s a large, bustling room: trolleys roll past to clean up dirtied tables, people zigzag between groups to pick up self-serve water and cutlery; a television mounted to the wall plays quietly over the diners. Everyone is united by the food, mostly southern Vietnamese cuisine, which plays out in a menu that spans many pages. The pho is likely the most ordered dish (the restaurant uses a recipe, unchanged, from Try It Out’s founder, the current owners’ late father), which makes sense considering the attention given to its long-simmering broth. Flavours are colourful, bold, fresh; dishes are skilled but warm and homey. A well-deserved long-lived institution.