You may have seen a lifestyle column in this weekend’s DomPost where Hadyn Jones bemoaned the "fact" that you can’t get milkshakes at cafés in Wellington, and blamed this on the idea that Wellingtonians are too cool and stuck-up for such things. There are just a few things wrong with this:

  • Just off the top of our little insect brains, we came up with Fidel’s, Midnight Espresso, Sweet Mother’s Kitchen, Espressoholic, Maranui and Offbeat Originals as noted enablers for the shake-addicted.
  • Those are hardly obscure, hard-to-find underground establishments. If the DomPost’s esteemed correspondent is not aware of their menus, then one has to ask: just where has he been hanging out?
  • If anything, those are the sort of places preferred by the cool kids, so it’s hardly a hipper-than-thou attitude that is keeping the oppressed milkshake down.
  • And finally, if he did happen to ask for a milkshake in one of the more upmarket restaurant-style cafés, then I believe the staff would be quite justified to respond "No, we don’t serve milkshakes. Neither do we serve lollipops, Rashuns or hot dogs on sticks. We’re a café, not a dairy, burger bar or provincial tearooms circa 1983."

But there’s clearly a nostalgic hankering for gelatinous concoctions of artificial flavour and industrial-strength saturated fats, given the number of local establishments that do serve them. So, please help out the DomPost’s confused and bemused journalist by letting us know where your favourite milkshakes are: which place has the best shake, the best value and the best range?