We did­n’t have the TAWAs this year, but lots of awe­some­ness still took place. Here’s a very self-indul­gent look at what I par­tic­u­lar­ly loved and did­n’t — hope­ful­ly oth­er Welling­ton­istas will add their own posts too.

The sin­gle best meal I have had this year: the Ambe­li takes this one out. Sim­ply stun­ning food and sub­lime ser­vice. I only wish I was rich enough to go here more than once a year.

The sin­gle worst ser­vice of the year was at Mon­soon Poon.

The place I would be pho­tographed at if I was going to be in the Domin­ion Post’s “My Favourite Table” col­umn: Mon­terey. Espe­cial­ly now they have a pulled pork burg­er on their menu. Always a love­ly place to loi­ter in, except on $10 Tues­days when it is crazy busy.

Where every­body knows your name and what you drink: Oh Mighty Mighty, I love you so. I love Sal­ly in the tequi­la shack, and the bar­tenders who tell me that they haven’t seen me in ages, mak­ing me feel vir­tu­ous. I love the Wednes­day quiz with its ridicu­lous prizes, I love the toast­ed sand­wich­es and the extra olives in my dirty dirty mar­ti­nis, and I love that the staff don’t judge you for any indis­cre­tions. I love the ran­dom con­ver­sa­tions you will have with ran­dom strangers, and the friends you make in the toi­lets. My Xmas wish for you is that you get some air con­di­tion­ing.

Where every­one ats your name: It should come as no sur­prise, giv­en that Dom is down with the inter­nets and all, but it seems like every­one you ever meet at Hashigoza­ke has an @ in front of their name. Don’t let that dis­tract you from the deli­cious beers and love­ly ser­vice.

The best place for prod­uct launch­es and cel­e­bra­tions: Oh Bet­tys, you make me [sic] but you’re still so pur­ty with all your great screens. And your punch is del­ish. And that Welling­ton on a Plate meal was one of deli­cious things I’ve eat­en this year. 

Things that sur­prised me: I sup­pose it real­ly should­n’t have sur­prised me giv­en how pop­u­lar they are, but the Ruth Pret­ty cater­ing for the Welling­ton on a Plate launch was so good. Her columns in the Dom Post annoy me, so I was­n’t antic­i­pat­ing that.

Also sur­pris­ing after a lack of ser­vice so bad we walked out after going in for drinks once: the real­ly great ser­vice at a din­ner at Ances­tral. Not only were they love­ly with their food and wine rec­om­men­da­tions, they also phoned the bar we said we were off to after­wards when they found I’d left my coat and good­ie bag behind. Which brings me to…

So many great good­ie bags! It’s a hard life edit­ing the Welling­ton­ista, I tells ya. Forced to find a home for gun­pow­der rum, Whit­tak­er’s Choco­late, deli­cious Bee’s Bless­ing cor­dials — not to men­tion an ever-grow­ing col­lec­tion of com­mem­o­ra­tive tea tow­els!

Par­ty of the year: Fish­Head mag­a­inze’s one year anniver­sary. Any par­ty where you can go swim­ming after a glass or two of wine and look down on Cuba Street while you’re doing it is just some­thing super spe­cial.

Thing that makes good events great: Pho­to­booths! And my pick, based on the love­li­ness of Dion, is the Amaz­ing Trav­el­ing Pho­to­booth.

Asian food galore! Obvi­ous­ly I went to a but­t­load of Malaysian restau­rants, but this year (I think) has also seen Welling­ton final­ly get­ting some more Viet­namese food as well, with Nam in the Willis Street Vil­lage offer­ing three cours­es for $25 (do it!), and also Saigon Taste on Mar­jorib­anks Street hav­ing an exten­sive menu. In addi­tion to those, I’d like to throw mad props at Asia Kitchen on Vic­to­ria Street — as well as super tasty mains and a nice atmos­phere, they also offer CHOCOLATE WONTONS.

Sad thing: the clo­sure of the retail side of Cul­tured Petone makes me sad. I know Wendy will con­tin­ue to do amaz­ing cheese-relat­ed things (like pri­vate fon­due par­ties? YES PLEASE!), but I will miss being able to pop in and chat and sam­ple and buy. Petone is still total­ly worth a food­ie day trip though, with Ontrays, and La Bel­la Italia, and the Dutch Shop, and the Indi­an place where you can load up on Lim­ca and veg­e­tar­i­an pack­et cur­ries to put in your sur­vival kit.

Oth­er sad things? I’m pret­ty sure that most of the Welling­ton­ista wear their bleed­ing lib­er­al hearts on their sleeves, so Novem­ber 27 was a pret­ty sad day. Can we get anoth­er fuck you, Chur­ton Park? On the bright side, there was a great result for the Greens, and for­mer TAWA pre­sen­ter Grant Robert­son is now deputy Labour leader, so there’s that. And our ques­tions for can­di­dates did make for some lols, like Paul Fos­ter-Bel­l’s solu­tion of BUILD MOAR ROADS to improve Welling­ton’s envi­ron­ment.

The per­son­al is polit­i­cal: the Queer the Night march envi­ron­ment was love­ly made me feel all warm inside. Slut­walk was impor­tant but real­ly hard.

Snow! Not so much fun if you live on an insane­ly steep street as many of us do, but it sure was pret­ty in this video.

A Welling­ton mem­o­ry: On Decem­ber 3, most of my friends were at the TSB Are­na for roller der­by but I did­n’t go because it angries up my blood too much. After the earth­quake, every­one was a bit shak­en (ha!) so they all piled into my lounge for dumplings and wine, like they had piled into my lounge to hide from #RWC (or as it was prop­er­ly titled #win­ter­iscom­ing). It was a big Welling­ton hug after a hor­ri­ble scare. Yay.

Things that oth­ers may touch on which were not for me: the film fes­ti­val, all the new beer bars, sport, that sign, Basin Reserve & road­ing issues.

And final­ly, in the spir­it of giv­ing:

My cur­rent char­i­ty to sup­port: Welling­ton SPCA. Also, some­one should adopt these cats please.

For 2012, I hope that noone falls down the stairs at Hooch (again), and that we get a donut shop. Please can we get a donut shop?