Shot Alive

In the 1970s and 1980s I lived in Northcote and it was my local shopping centre. Then in the 1990s and since, the Asian population of Auckland has exploded and many of them live on Auckland's North Shore. Northcote shopping centre has become Chinatown, or Asiatown to be more accurate. There are multiple Asian supermarkets, many Asian restaurants, an Asian Food hall, Asian vegetable shops, Asian health practitioners and many other Asian shops. The signs and the food are in a mixture of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and English with perhaps a few other South East Asian flavours also.

Now we live in Birkenhead, the adjacent suburb to Northcote, and we eat at the food hall in Northcote on an almost weekly basis. Being vegetarians, it allows us a good selection from the 12 vendors: Chinese, Thai, Indian, Japanese and so on.

This is a little photographic tour of Northcote.

The food hall has a great variety of tasty food at very reasonable prices. Or you can go to the individual restaurants.

Shops range from beautiful decor to signs falling apart ...

... but the contents is still excellent, whether packaged or fresh.

The people are very friendly and the service is good.

Signs are everywhere, and in the food hall their is a bewildering array of menus, perhaps as many as 400 to choose from.

After we have eaten there are still some shops open, but signs of the owners cleaning up and closing up. It is still very colourful though.