Drunken conversations: Beth from Eat and Greet

Every­one who’s a drink­er knows that the best con­ver­sa­tions hap­pen when you are plied with good food and good drinks, so I’ve decided I’m going to inter­view some choice Wel­ling­to­ni­ans after we have been imbib­ing togeth­er.

First on the plate is Beth from Eat and Greet which launched last year and is doing a really great job of talk­ing to the people behind the food of Wel­ling­ton. We met at Hum­ming­bird  (which I rave about, and she recently inter­viewed the chef Glen) and had some cock­tails and some wine and an enorm­ous piece of  meat, and then out came the voice record­er. After the jump and these Ins­tagram pic­tures, you’ll find pas­sion, drink­ing the blood of our enemies, mock­ing of Ins­tagram, and the anti Dav­id Bur­ton…

Jo: Okay Beth, eat drink and eat and greet – I’ll write your name down prop­erly later. Tell us what we just had for din­ner.

Beth: So we just basic­ally had an umami bomb in our mouths, start­ing off with a show with a mush­room syphon that syphoned off an insanely good mush­room tea, which we sipped while hav­ing beet­root tor­tellini, and then we shared a big giant bone of meat togeth­er, and basic­ally made dirty jokes the entire time. There was a lot of meat innu­endo, and bone innu­endo, but it was hard not to.

Joanna: My god, there were rais­ins in our entree accord­ing to the menu (Rais­ins are the WORST)! So our entree was mead­ow mush­room and goat cheese tor­tellini with golden rais­ins and pine nuts, and syphon mush­room tea, but that does­n’t say beet­root, and there was most def­in­itely beet­root in our pasta. The mush­room tea tasted like you were drink­ing your oppon­ent’s blood after a mighty battle, and it was amaz­ing.

The main was HB Sig­na­ture prime rib for two (800gm), corn on the cob, greek salad (com­par­at­ively not that great)
truffle parmes­an pota­toes, spiced onion rings, red wine jus

Beth: Spiced onion rings, I’m not a big onion ring fan, like take them or leave them, but those were ridicu­lous.

Joanna: They were great onion rings, I still think Monterey’s are my favour­ite of all time. Right, Beth, Eat and Greet Blog: why did you start a food blog? Is it because of the dra­mat­ic short­age of them in the world?

Beth: Ha! There’s a lot of food blogs in the world, and I read maybe 60% of them, so the world does not need anoth­er food blog. But I was look­ing at the Con­crete Play­ground blog awards last year, and I was look­ing at the food sec­tion, and I basic­ally saw that the food blogs up in Auck­land were like “hey, this is where it’s good to eat” like Eat Here Now - like hey, I’ve gone and checked out this place.…

Joanna: cough Wel­ling­tonista cough.

Beth: But then all the food blogs down in Wel­ling­ton were like “Hey, I made a thing”.…

Joanna: “And isn’t it twee and delight­ful?”

Beth: “And isn’t it twee and delight­ful and look at this…”

Joanna:  Ins­tagram…

Beth: Ins­tagram and flowers in the back­ground. And I was just like, I want there to be a trus­ted source of where to eat in Wel­ling­ton, but then I was like, well who am I to say what is good and what isn’t, and I wanted to give the power back to the people who are behind that plate of food. There’s thought and there’s reas­on­ing behind it. And basic­ally I just wanted it to be an anti Dav­id Bur­ton. I did­n’t want it to be me say­ing what is good and what is bad, and what is authen­t­ic, and “that’s not how I tasted it when I went to this obscure little res­taur­ant in South East Asia”. I wanted to go to those people who have immig­rated from some­where, and they have these amaz­ing stor­ies, and actu­ally – there’s so much more to food than just taste and what is on your plate, and that’s what I wanted to do.

Joanna: That is excel­lent. Now tell me a secret Wel­ling­ton place, and I don’t want you to be all like “OMG, there’s this res­taur­ant that’s down a little alley in Cuba Street and it’s called the Mat­ter­horn and it’s really great”. Tell me an actu­al secret place in Wel­ling­ton that’s great

Beth: A place that gets men­tioned a lot is KC Cafe. And I don’t know if it’s actu­ally secret, like you walk past it and it just looks like, you know, open until 4am on Cour­tenay Place and you prob­ably go there when you’re drunk, but actu­ally it’s really fuck­ing good Chinese food that there’s not much of in Wel­ling­ton. It’s cheap, and if you order from the bot­tom half of the menu, it’s fuck­ing authen­t­ic. I mean, you’ve got your sweet and sour pork at the top, but like, go down the bot­tom and there’s tripe and weird shit, and it’s tasty.

Joanna: Awe­some, how many ques­tions is that? Four? Two? Okay, ‚what is the ques­tion that you wish people asked you more about.

Beth: I love ask­ing a few ques­tions on my blog because I get such great answers, like “What’s some­thing about your­self that oth­er people may not know?” and anoth­er is “What’s a really vivid child­hood memory you have around food?” and both of those ques­tions invoke really good answers.

Joanna: Excel­lent! I’m not going to ask you either of those ques­tions! Right, what’s the one thing you wish Wel­ling­ton had?

Beth: A fuck­ing rooftop bar! And a fuck­ing ramen place! All of the things! You can put that in Capslo­cks!

Who should I talk to next for Drunk­en Con­ver­sa­tions? Let me know! Is it you? We’ll put it on the com­pany cred­it card (by which I mean we’ll go Dutch), and have a lovely time.