Welly on a Plate 2016: it begins

So Wel­ling­ton on a Plate has been going for four days now, and I have three things to report back on so far. Good on me, let’s see if I can keep this pace up (I won’t be able to).

• The Suite Life at the Bolton Hotel
• Tapas and wine
• Dine Wel­ling­ton menu at Ster­ling

Your Key to a Suite Wellington Journey

I bloody love hotels. Love love love them. So when I saw this event in the pro­gramme I had to jump on it and I’m really glad I did, because it was a thor­oughly excel­lent night. We were divided into three groups of around a dozen people, and were taken around five dif­fer­ent suites on the eighth floor of the Bolton Hotel, where we were treated to dif­fer­ent food & drink exper­i­ences in each room. The first we entered fea­tured a grand piano and a man play­ing stand­ards, while the bath was full of cham­pagne. The next room was Bee­hive-themed, with honey cock­tails and four beds pushed togeth­er for shenanigans.

There was a craft beer, bur­ger and lego room which was deli­cious but oddly almost beard-free, except for the very lovely chef (the group my friend and I were in were… a little older than us, so they wer­en’t hugely famil­i­ar with the labels though they had heard that one of the beer com­pan­ies had done some­thing recently with money). There was a pic­nic room with bottles of Ata Ran­gi Rosé and cheese plat­ters and astro­turf and pil­lows for pic­nick­ing on, the delight­ful­ness of which was only sur­passed by the delight­ful­ness of the lovely staff look­ing after us.

There were cor­ridors full of wind machines and inside-out umbrel­las. There was an 1840 room with lash­ings of pinot noir and food that early set­tlers would have eaten. And then, my friends, there was the pent­house sweet. I mean suite. There were sweets in the suite, if you know what I mean, and if you don’t know what I mean, then let me show you.

Hooooooly smokes. The only dis­ap­point­ment was that there was no booze on offer on the top floor, but a quiet word soon had us drink­ing bub­bly out of tea­cups. The view from the top was pretty fab­ulous too. I would def­in­itely stay there, or actu­ally in the rest of the hotel too, though I did notice that many of the baths were a little on the small side (though not in the pent­house). The food and drink all night were very tasty, but even bet­ter was the excite­ment and delight of dis­cov­er­ing each room, and the staff. We hugged them when we left, they were that good. Based on this night, I would hap­pily recom­mend the hotel, if you ever find your­self in need of such a thing. And If this event is held next year, you should go. It’s def­in­itely worth the $125. My best piece of advice is to try and take someone you can make out with in every room, because that’s what hotels are for.

Tastings and Tapas with Matahiwi Estate

On Sat­urday after­noon, still a little sore in the head after the Bolton, I headed to Avida with my fam­ily because appar­ently I had­n’t had enough wine yet.  There we had bubbles and tried dif­fer­ent vin­tages of the same wines, matched with beau­ti­ful food, as the man from Matahi­wi talked. We did quizzes, I won a bottle of dessert wine for my crude ins­tagram cap­tions, a lovely time was had by all. I’ll def­in­itely go back to Avida for more of their amaz­ing food (THOSE BALLS!), and I believe I ordered a case or so of the Matahi­wi wine so that will be a thing that hap­pens too. I think this event hap­pens every year, and it was bloody great value at $45.

The Dine dish at Sterling

After tak­ing Sunday off, today as lunch­time drew near I found myself try­ing to decide what & where exactly I should eat. The new­ness of Ster­ling, as well as its ped­i­gree being from the makers of Egmont Street Eat­ery won me over. They’re try­ing to bring life to the Ter­race at night, appar­ently, and giv­en that they’re part of a hotel, maybe they’ll suc­ceed. I hope they do. But to lunch. I am sad that the focus on a Dine dish this year means places are no longer doing two courses and a glass of wine for $25 or $35, but hon­estly, with pork belly this good, I ain’t got much to com­plain about.

It was a tad on the salty side, which was excel­lent for me, but for a less salty sail­or might be a little much. The water­cress and fen­nel was so refresh­ing against the rich­ness of the pork and potato I would have liked a little more. But those are minor minor quibbles. The crack­ling was per­fect, crisp, crunchy and with a suc­cu­lent lay­er of fat under it too. I’m going to have to come back to try their bur­ger – and then come back for the reg­u­lar menu too. I just hope they con­sider their audi­ence and get some magazines for hotel guests and pub­lic ser­vants who dine alone.

So, that’s me off to a great start. What have YOU been eat­ing?