I have clearly timed career moves badly, because in the hungry wait for Wel­ling­ton on a Plate I was unem­ployed and spent large parts of the day dream­ing about where and what I would eat, but now it’s on, I have a tem­por­ary job and it’s not in the CBD. Dis­aster!

How­ever, it turned out that the sub­urbs are where it’s at when I rolled into Floy­d’s in Island Bay. It was a cold day (although before this cur­rent snow weath­er), and the light col­ours of the interi­or are a bit stark on a grey day, but I was wel­comed warmly. I was guided to menus, water was brought in an old fash­ioned cream bottle, the table was checked for wob­bli­ness, and I was asked if I wanted the paper – as it turns out I was much hap­pi­er with one of their many cur­rent issues of Who. Less than ten minutes after I’d ordered, my Island Bay Butchery pork spare ribs with pickled cher­ries were placed in front of me.

The speed at which they came out was much appre­ci­ated for a week­day lunch option. The meat was­n’t exactly fall­ing off the bone like ribs can some­times be, but much sat­is­fied gnaw­ing was had. The cherry sauce was sur­pris­ingly spicy, tempered a little by the pars­ley, and I really appre­ci­ated the fin­ger­bowl, and that new nap­kins appeared like magic. Shortly after my bones were clearly away, I received my olive oil-poached cod on a green bean, black olive and caper salad with Hae­wai Mead­ery mead vinai­grette.

I sup­pose the word “salad” should have clued me in, but I was still a little suprised that the fish was cold. There was­n’t an over­whelm­ing olive oil taste either, which is prob­ably a good thing. The lettuce and beans were aston­ish­ingly fresh and full of fla­vour, and if I’d been a caper fan, I would have been happy to dis­cov­er them in berry form as well as the con­ven­tion­al buds. Thi s would have been a great meal for a hot day. Luck­ily, the Pen­car­row chardon­nay along with the excel­lence ser­vice warmed up my belly.

Hav­ing a fish salad felt so vir­tu­ous that I got a piece of car­a­mel slice to take away, and it was lush. I will def­in­itely be return­ing to Floy­d’s in the future for their reg­u­lar menu, and they’re a shin­ing beacon of just how good ser­vice can be in Wel­ling­ton.