This week’s food­ie mus­ings take me back to Wednesday’s 2–4‑1 din­ner at the Boat Café, nibbles and drinks at The Hop Garden, and a Le Canard roast duck from the Har­bourside Mar­ket.

Boat cafe foodThe Boat Café har­bours (yeah, yeah groan!) fond memor­ies of the ori­gin­al Parade Café, a place of wor­ship for many. The food remains well presen­ted, good value, and sat­is­fy­ing (the fries def­in­itely worthy), and the staff wel­com­ing.  And the views are prob­ably only rivalled by 180 upstairs at the Copthorne.

Although I’m assured the same man­age­ment exists, the food has seemed slightly more refined and var­ied in recent times, includ­ing my pan-fried groper on Wed­nes­day.  Maybe some new hands in the kit­chen?  Whatever it is, go the Boat crew. And don’t miss the Wed­nes­day 2–4‑1 din­ners.

Sat­urday saw a meet­ing of friends (old and new) at The Hop Garden for tapas and drinks.  A pleas­ant light fla­voured Te Mata pils­ner made its way into my glass to com­ple­ment tasty treats like warm goats cheese and auber­gine frit­ters with house pic­ca­lilli and chive oil, pork belly with apple rel­ish, mini Cajun-spiced drum­sticks… sal­iv­at­ing yet?

It’s such a relaxed and pleas­ant atmo­sphere under the glass and grapev­ines.  But ssh­hh, don’t tell too many people.

Le Canard duckAnd lastly, I’ve been hanker­ing after a Le Canard roast duck for some time (sad I know), and recently found a col­lec­tion of tasty leftover duck recipes in a magazine, so it was all on for young and old.

Warm duck and chut­ney rolls for lunch yes­ter­day, duck noodle soup for din­ner tonight and quick duck and mush­room risotto for din­ner tomor­row.  Yummo (tech­nic­al word).

Duck is a tough one to get right, but oth­er than duck­ie and I hav­ing a wee tussle over some of the inner pieces close to the bone, the meat was reas­on­ably tender without being over-fatty.  Well-played Le Canard.  See their web­site for the daily loc­a­tions of their La Rotis­ser­ie du Canard truck.