Have you ever wanted to just eat your way around a sub­urb? No? Well, we here at Wel­ling­tonista have, and we figured it would make sense to start with Hataitai. After all, who does­n’t love Hataitai? So here’s what you can get to eat:

The fish’n chips shop (Supremo Bur­ger):
This Fish’n Chips shop appears to have Greek own­ers, which means good good things for the qual­ity of the fish on sale. Mostly the chips are thick and crisp, although there’s been one or two times when they wer­en’t up to their usu­al mar­velous stand­ard. You can get your chips with lem­on & pep­per or chick­en or gar­lic salt if you’re that way inclined. Wel­ling­tonista likes them a little gar­licy. They also do big bur­gers, some of which hov­er around the ‘gour­met’ descrip­tion – like chick­en and brie. We also dig on their big corn frit­ters and veget­able spring rolls.

  • Hot tip: they sell con­tain­ers of gar­lic mayo for those of us of Dutch ori­gin, although they are $3 for a rather small tub.
  • Worst fea­ture: stu­pid drunks hit­ting on us while we wait for our food.

The bur­ger chain (Bur­ger Wis­con­sin):
It’s the gen­er­ic gour­met bur­ger joint, and any­one from Auck­land could tell you that it’s vastly inferi­or to Bur­ger Fuel, and people on the Inter­net will mut­ter about how it only moved in to Hataitai because of Supremo Bur­ger, and they’re prob­ably all right. Still, the bur­gers are tasty enough, and there’s a wide range of magazines to read while you wait – although the light­ing is almost too dim to.

  • Hot tip: If you say “I saw on the web­site that if you say that you saw it on the web­site you get free dip for your chips”, you get free dip – and the gar­lic mayo is super tasty.
  • Worst fea­ture: The prices. $4.50 for kumara fries? Really?

The Indi­an takeaways (Khana Kazana):
The best thing about Khana Kazana is that they offer medi­um sized por­tions for around $7.50 as well as the stand­ard $12ish sized por­tions. This means you won’t (prob­ably) die of a cream induced heart attack. You’re not going to have to deal with your taste buds being too over­whelmed either, or your “wow, that’s some fine, friendly ser­vice!” thoughts being too over-power­ing either. This is very bog stand­ard Indi­an food, but hey, it’s loc­al.

The pub (The Realm):
Ignore the shady look­ing bar on the street, and instead walk around the out­side to the back, where the guts of the Realm is. Here it’s not so seedy, and they do food. They even make decent enough cof­fees to go with greasy hun­gov­er week­end brunches. Admit­tedly, the mains are now over-priced since the new own­ers did away with the two-for-ones, but at least the food’s not ter­rible, by any stretch of the ima­gin­a­tion. They also have a vari­ety of weekly spe­cials, like $12 Sunday Roasts, and there’s Quiz Night on thursdays from 7.30pm. Wel­ling­tonista has yet to go there on a week­end night, but appar­ently it’s quite pop­u­lar, espe­cially for sport watch­ing. The staff are all very friendly and some­times a little over-the-top, but the guy who hosts the quiz nights is annoy­ingly slow and can­’t pro­nounce many of the words he needs to.

  • Hot tip: Book a table with a Happy Tap in it for that spe­cial occa­sion when you want don’t want to have to stand up or hail a wait­ress to get your next beer. Also, make sure you book a table for the quiz night, cos the place packs out.
  • Worst fea­ture: The vent­il­a­tion sys­tem is pretty bad, espe­cially upstairs, so expect to come out of there smelling a little greasy.

The Thai takeaways (Nak­hon Thai):
Is cur­rently closed for renov­a­tions. Pre­vi­ous exper­i­ence has found their cur­ries to be too bland and their stir-fries to be too hot, but per­haps this will change. Watch this space.

  • Best fea­ture: you can dine in, and it’s BYO.
  • Worst fea­ture: it’s still closed, a month after it was sup­posed to re-open

The kebab shop (Lamaso):
Mmmmm. Wel­ling­tonista loves Lamaso. They’re of the gour­met West­ern­ised vari­ety, mean­ing that you can get Tan­dori chick­en, or kumara pat­ties or chut­ney or bacon & avo­cado or just nuts in your kebab, if you’re that way inclined. All meat is cooked in indi­vidu­al lots, and the falafel and mujaver is deep-fried on demand. Order­ing your meal as an iskendar is a great way to make sure that you get your five-plus servings of veget­ables, and they’re from all across the vege col­our scheme too.

  • Hot tip: Order the dish that has three meat options plus veget­ari­an bits, and eat­ing your way through the anim­al king­dom as well as the vege phylum. Or just read the Footrot Flats books while you wait – that’s fun as well.
  • Worst fea­ture: It’d be nice if they did chips as well, for those days when you don’t want to be too healthy, or potato kofta like Fatim­a’s, their Auck­land equivilent, does.

The cafe (Cafe Bel­la­gio):
It’s small, but the cof­fee’s fine, and there’s mostly room to spread out the week­end paper – and if there isn’t you can read a magazine intead and that’s what’s import­ant. The black­board menu has plenty of salady options, and isn’t too “YOU MUST EAT EGG NOW”, which is a nice change from many places, but the selec­tion isn’t over­whelm­ingly excit­ing. The cab­in­et does have yummy sweet treats to go with your cof­fee, so all in all, it’s a nice sub­urb­an cafe. You won’t be blown away, but you’ll prob­ably stroll back again next week­end if you live in the neigh­bour­hood.

The bakery (Hataitai Hot Bread Shop):
Is appar­ently open 24 hours on the week­end. Their donuts are also very good. More thoughts about the bakery from read­ers would be act­ively encour­aged.

The Chinese takeaway (Great Wall Takeaways):
While the fish’n chips isn’t as good as from the ded­ic­ated shop down the road, the Chinese food is yum. Well, at least the sweet’n sour pork and the chick­en & cashews is. And yes, Wel­ling­tonista ordered cliched food. But if that’s what’s pop­u­lar, then a place should do it well, yes? Yes. The place has tables so you can eat in, or sit and read magazines while you wait, and the food comes in large poly­styrene con­tain­ers that keep food nuc­le­ar hot.

The pizza place (Hell):
You don’t have to go all the way to the under­world to go to Hell, which is always good to know. This par­tic­u­lar circle of Hell is pretty quick, and while the boys who work there aren’t as hot as their Khan­dal­lah broth­ers (or even the boys at Wis­con­sin next door), at least the chick­en tastes more like chick­en and less like lunch­eon meat.

  • Hot tip: try the dessert pizza with bana­nas, cus­tard and chocol­ate – mmmmmmmm!
  • Worst fea­ture: Although they’re only a block away from my house, if I wanted them to deliv­er they’d still charge me $4 for it. Lazy bas­tards.