Wellington on a Plate so far

Wel­ling­ton on a Plate opened on Fri­day. How’s it been for you so far? We’ve been try­ing to share people’s microreviews on Twit­ter, and of course @wellyonaplate will be even more inform­at­ive,  but I thought I’d do some prop­er writeups for you about what I’ve been eat­ing. So, in chro­no­lo­gic­al order:

1. Dine menu at The Grill
2. Nadia Lim’s Mas­ter­class
3. The Chocol­ate Fest­iv­al…

1. Dine menu at The Grill at the Amora

I star­ted a new job last week and there’s a lot to learn, so I decided to take a little time out and treat myself to a quiet lunch alone on Fri­day. I con­sul­ted the Google Doc I’d set up & shared with my friends fea­tur­ing all the places I want to eat at, and decided The Grill would be a good choice, des­pite the crappy ser­vice I’ve had there, because it was likely to be quiet, and a good place to read a trashy magazine and clear my head.

What I had for­got­ten about was that it’s a place which tries to do form­al ser­vice. That means call­ing me “Ma’am” (I still get asked for ID in super­mar­kets, I should­n’t be a ma’am!), and while they for­got to ask to take my coat when I sat down, they did come over halfway through my lunch to rearrange it for me because appar­ently it was drag­ging on the ground. I also got asked six times by three dif­fer­ent staff “sorry, how is everything?”. Not a quiet and relax­ing lunch after all!

But the food, let’s talk about that. The chest­nut soup was okay, the crispy sage leaves deli­cious but the soup itself the col­our of bad gravy, with a skin form­ing on it. The Señor De Cerdo Pic­antes bur­ger, mean­while, “Cho­ri­zo patty with manchego cheese, quince aioli and rock­et on a Pan­doro turk­ish bun, with Merguez-spiced potato wedges”, was fant­ast­ic, a thick juicy patty, amaz­ing aioli with hints of honey in it, and good bread. The wedges tasted like they’d been sprinkled with stand­ard cajun season­ing from a jar, but they were unne­ces­sary since I had the soup any­way. It was a great bur­ger, I wish I’d got it to go though.

2. Nadia Lim’s Mas­ter­class 

Me and Laura Hungry & Frozen were invited along to Nadia Lim’s Mas­ter­class and the drinks and sal­mon canapes after­wards by the lovely PR people for Regal King Sal­mon. I had­n’t seen her on the telly, but I loved her present­ing style, as she talked about mak­ing sure to turn off your mic when you go for a wee, and about how she almost burned down a cater­ing cli­ent’s six mil­lion dol­lar house. She also did some very nice and simple things with the spon­sor’s product that we got to eat after­wards (well, the ver­sions made by the cater­ing staff any­way). It was just a shame that Rex Mor­gan was sit­ting at the back talk­ing to a friend the whole way through – very dis­tract­ing and super rude. That’s Boul­cott Street Bis­tro off my list of places to vis­it then.

Nadia was abso­lutely lovely though and gave some good advice to Laura, who’s work­ing on her first cook­book, and deal­ing well with the woman with insist­ent ques­tions about fish farm­ing (there’s always one, isn’t there?). Mean­while, I just enjoyed the fact that I live in a city where I can bowl on up to the may­or for a hug, and insist she start watch­ing Parks & Recre­ation.

3. The Chocol­ate Fest­iv­al

I haven’t been to the Chocol­ate Fest­iv­al yet, as it’s tak­ing place over the 24th-26th, but I wanted to draw your atten­tion to it to make sure you book your­self in. If you’re one of the many people I saw on Twit­ter talked about how Esme was robbed on NZ’s Hot­test Home Baker, you could even go have a cup of tea with her. Or just go and enjoy all the good­ness you can handle.

The New Zea­l­and Chocol­ate Fest­iv­al brings togeth­er a vast array of chocol­ate and culin­ary exper­i­ences which will make you feel gooey all over. The finest chocol­ati­ers and chocol­ate makers of New Zea­l­and cre­ate exquis­ite mas­ter­pieces and delight­ful treats for you to enjoy. Dis­cov­er the ori­gins of chocol­ate while absorb­ing the aroma of baked sweet­ness. Stim­u­late all your senses and per­haps even get your hands a little dirty.