The Bluestone Room

Well almost on the back of an alley, and not so easy to spot. But a good old pub with a very nice inside atmosphere. Walls are made with old bricks and a very long counter which ensure a fsst service. Price are within the normal range and you can get some fingers food for not much. A good hang out for after work where it seems to be busy the most. Usual place to start Friday night.

This place is our boozy work lunch haunt! Great in winter as warm and cosy inside however not great in summer as dark and only has a tiny outdoor area. You could easily get stuck inside for hours.
Standard pub food will a bit of a jazz up but nothing an epicurean would write home about. Service is pub standard too.
Great for groups!

In my book not much beats a good ol’ fashioned pub and the overflow onto the street of suit & ties when we went to The Bluestone Room, would suggest the 9−5ers in town agree.
The Bluestone Room is tucked down on Durham Lane (not to be confused with Durham St) and is housed in an old historical building. Look down once you’re inside the door and you’ll see Auckland’s very first well! The Bluestone Room’s got all the usual pub-​ey drinks and food — Monteiths on tap, mainstream wine and the usual pub grub on the menu. The after-​work atmosphere is lively but we came to The Bluestone Room for one reason and one reason only — Quiz Night.
We booked a table and I’d definitely recommend you do to. Quiz night here is popular. As for the quiz itself, I’m told it’s the same one they do in every pub — the ‘Believe It Or Not’ quiz. Personally, I thought it was pretty tricky. My two tips are to have a range of ages and different nationalities. People take quiz night here preeeetty seriously but I kind of like that — nothing like a bit of healthy competition. How did we fare? Well, not great but we didn’t lose. I’ll be back next with my Mum!

Me and my dining companion visited The Bluestone Room on Friday night and it was totally packed. There was no room at all to even to stand, so we decided to come back. When we finally stepped into the restaurant on Monday, things were a lot different. Quiet, calm and eased. Gosh, I am starting to enjoy going to bars in the early days of the week.
Service was marvelous from the start. We were shown the different sized beer glasses when we queried and the waiters were very attentive. We ordered ‘Pie’oneer of the day (18.5) and Swainson’s ribs (19 for eight) which was more than enough for both of us. The chicken and mushroom pie was absolutely delicious. Tender chicken pieces were everywhere and the crispy case of the pie was to die for. There were potato mash and cheese on top which complimented what was below — not creamy at all. I simply fell in love with this pie.
I stole one of my companion’s rib and soon smiled as my choice was a winner. Slow roasted pork was touch too chewy for me. It was a generous serving of eight but came in a pot which was pretty hard to eat.

I came to the Bluestone Room the first time as my friend was having her 21^st here. It was such an awesome little bar. It is located down a little side street off Queens Street called Durham Lane. I would have never have known this place existed!
Here they quite happily hired out the venue for a private event. They had said that a few nights prior to the 21^st they had a drag queen show, obviously this is quite a versatile bar that will happily play host for a number of events.
The bar supplied the food for this event and man was it good! Not good for you, but very yummy! There were deep fried samosas, meatball, fried chicken nibbles, and my favourite prawn twisters. The prawn twisters were fantastic!
The bar had a moderate range of spirits available (but that was on display, they may have had more elsewhere). They also had the Monteith’s beer range on tap.
This is a cool bar that I would like to come back to. They have a restaurant section however I never made it to that area. If you like to be adventurous and try out new places then I would recommend checking out this place as it’s not in a mainstream kind of location.

Right, I’ve been here a few times and one of those times was absolutely awful. I ordered a pasta dish, and asked for no bacon as I don’t eat it. They brought our food out, and there was bacon on top and all through my pasta. So I took it back, the waitress rolling her eyes and sighing. A little while later they brought the dish back out, and it seemed there was no bacon in it. Pfft. Turns out the stupid «chef» just took the bacon off the top of the pasta, but there was bacon through out ALL OF THE PASTA. I took it back again, the waitress in a huff, everyone else finishing their food, until finally they made a pasta without bacon. Sorry, I didn’t realise it was so difficult for the «chef» to just not add bacon to my food, what an inconvenience I am. I was so mad and they were so rude about it I refused to pay. So there.
I have been back since then, and the service and food was great. It’s a lovely pub and restaurant, with a great look, layout and atmosphere. If it wasn’t for that one bad experience I’d rate it really highly. Hopefully that stupid bacon lover chef and surly waitress have moved on and opened a I Love Bacon restaurant chain.

I’ve only been here for pub quizzes, so I can’t really comment on what it’s like other nights of the week. As far as the pub quizzes went, it was variable. The first one was hosted by a local comedian (this is during the comedy festival), who spent the whole evening doing an impression of Bane from The Dark Knight Rises — by which I mean he sounded like a man mumbling through a sock into a microphone made of exposed wires and buckets. Since then though I’ve been to other quizzes here and the sound has been fine.
The pub itself is pleasant enough, all dark browns that give a touch of old-​fashioned class but do make it feel a bit oppressive, maybe. You can see why people like to sit out the front, especially when there’s still sunlight.

I went to Bluestone Room for a pub quiz (Believe Ir Or Not quiz, Wednesday nights) and what impressed me was their early start time, efficient rounds and thus early finish — all without compromising the quality of the quiz, which was organised and well-​run. It’s nice to be able to go out on a weeknight and still go to bed at a reasonable hour by the time you get home (am I getting old or what?!).
I had the Rum Banana Split for dessert (at least the rum part could make me feel less like a child) which comes with gourmet icecream and was pretty delicious. Also it’s hard to go wrong with a banana split but since I not-​so-​secretly love them and have probably had more than my fair share as an adult, it met expectations.

On the plus side there is Pay and Display parking across the road. And there is a kind of well/​hole in the floor of the bar. It’s kind of a Western meets Irish bar via Kiwi gum diggers design. But unless you are one of the first people inside you may never notice this chasm in the floor.
Every surrounding business empties into The Bluestone from lunch until well after dark. An upstairs function room spills out into the entrance so after 5 pm you’ll be lucky to see the door, let alone make it to the bar. No one will be able to hear anything you say so you can shout as loud as you like, all your pent up expletives and obscenities toward your workmates. There is a high chance you will be run down by a taxi or trampled by the crowd. Because everyone thinks it’s there own little secret get away I would advise you to sip your drink very slowly– you wont be getting another one for a while.