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!

picture of wedges and a burger

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.