269 Karangahape Road,
Newton
Auckland,


(09) 373 5656

add to my map

3 out of 5

K' Road is surreal at the best of times, but never more so than on a Saturday night where everyone else is wasted and you're stone-cold sober.

“Sober?” you might be thinking. “In K' Road, club central? Perhaps this fella's been after some of the strip's longer-established offerings …”

Well, no. It's hookahs we're after, nothing worse. Also known as shishas, these are the Middle-Eastern, ornate water pipes with snake-like mouthpieces which you share with your mates.

There's a couple of places in K' Road you can get them—at the Little Turkish Café, and here, at The Kebab House. The staff fill them with fruit tobacco for $10, and you're set for smoke for the next half an hour.

We could have had a proper drink—this place sells bottled beer and mixers. But we settle for coffees and pistachio cakes, and take a pavement pew.

It's after midnight and K' Road is in full flow, with everyone in various stages of inebriation and the girls showing a lot of skin. Opposite, men in dresses and cowboy hats are spilling onto the street from packed gay bar, Family.

As we pass the pipe, it attracts comments and curiosity. Some people tell us we should put pot in it. One girl, out for her 21st, asks us if there is pot in it, has a puff and can't decide either way.

Another girl weaves up and whacks me with a magic wand, saying “you're a very naughty boy.”

She's right, of course. But I'm not being one tonight. We're utterly intoxicant-free. It's an interesting alternative way to take in the colour of K' Road—we feel rather like old Turkish fellas sat in a doorway overlooking a bustling bazaar ... just kind of a bizarre one.