Last night while the Welling­ton­ista and FAGs and SAGs (that’s Friends and Girl­friends, and also Sis­ters and Girl­friends, there were no Part­ners present) were at South­ern Cross quiz, we realised that hey, they don’t give us chipped glass­es any­more! That means things have got bet­ter since we com­plained about them. It has also been not­ed that since we bitched about the decor at the Port Cafe, they have in fact rein­stat­ed a cheap­er menu for take­away, which is a good thing. So, to con­tin­ue on from those great devel­op­ments, here’s some more sug­ges­tions as we strive for per­fec­tion.

1. That the Cross gets a $35 wine. We’re bored of drink­ing the $30 Five Flax, and we feel like the jump up to $40 as the next cheap­est wine on their list is too big a jump. We appre­ci­ate that their Matari­ki Cab/Merlot and Ata Ran­gi Rose are love­ly, but we’d set­tle for some­thing less awe­some for less pricey.

2. That Word of Mouth labels its sal­ads. It sucks to queue for ages for what you think is going to be yum­my coleslaw with kumara, only to dis­cov­er that (eww!) there is tuna in the mix. They have a pen­cil-writ­ten list on their wall, with meat, dairy and aller­gens high­light­ed, but it does need a lot of peer­ing at to read. And yes, we know they change their sal­ads every day, but real­ly, would it take that long to print out labels and stick them in a lit­tle per­spex thingie on top of the counter?

3. That Viva Mex­i­co start offer­ing sides. I’d pay extra for gua­camole and sal­sa if I had the option. Also, we’d love them to get a BYO license and extend their hours.

4. In fact, let’s get all of Left­bank a BYO license, and make the cen­tre tables more com­mu­nal, so groups of peo­ple can pick­’n mix their din­ners. 5. I know this is a very long shot, but can we please have these train-bus­es too?