Welly on a Plate 2016: it begins

So Welling­ton on a Plate has been going for four days now, and I have three things to report back on so far. Good on me, let’s see if I can keep this pace up (I won’t be able to).

• The Suite Life at the Bolton Hotel
• Tapas and wine
• Dine Welling­ton menu at Ster­ling

Your Key to a Suite Wellington Journey

I bloody love hotels. Love love love them. So when I saw this event in the pro­gramme I had to jump on it and I’m real­ly glad I did, because it was a thor­ough­ly excel­lent night. We were divid­ed into three groups of around a dozen peo­ple, and were tak­en around five dif­fer­ent suites on the eighth floor of the Bolton Hotel, where we were treat­ed to dif­fer­ent food & drink expe­ri­ences in each room. The first we entered fea­tured a grand piano and a man play­ing stan­dards, while the bath was full of cham­pagne. The next room was Bee­hive-themed, with hon­ey cock­tails and four beds pushed togeth­er for shenani­gans.

There was a craft beer, burg­er and lego room which was deli­cious but odd­ly almost beard-free, except for the very love­ly chef (the group my friend and I were in were… a lit­tle old­er than us, so they weren’t huge­ly famil­iar with the labels though they had heard that one of the beer com­pa­nies had done some­thing recent­ly with mon­ey). There was a pic­nic room with bot­tles of Ata Ran­gi Rosé and cheese plat­ters and astro­turf and pil­lows for pic­nick­ing on, the delight­ful­ness of which was only sur­passed by the delight­ful­ness of the love­ly staff look­ing after us.

There were cor­ri­dors full of wind machines and inside-out umbrel­las. There was an 1840 room with lash­ings of pinot noir and food that ear­ly set­tlers would have eat­en. And then, my friends, there was the pent­house sweet. I mean suite. There were sweets in the suite, if you know what I mean, and if you don’t know what I mean, then let me show you.

Hooooooly smokes. The only dis­ap­point­ment was that there was no booze on offer on the top floor, but a qui­et word soon had us drink­ing bub­bly out of teacups. The view from the top was pret­ty fab­u­lous too. I would def­i­nite­ly stay there, or actu­al­ly in the rest of the hotel too, though I did notice that many of the baths were a lit­tle on the small side (though not in the pent­house). The food and drink all night were very tasty, but even bet­ter was the excite­ment and delight of dis­cov­er­ing each room, and the staff. We hugged them when we left, they were that good. Based on this night, I would hap­pi­ly rec­om­mend the hotel, if you ever find your­self in need of such a thing. And If this event is held next year, you should go. It’s def­i­nite­ly worth the $125. My best piece of advice is to try and take some­one you can make out with in every room, because that’s what hotels are for.

Tastings and Tapas with Matahiwi Estate

On Sat­ur­day after­noon, still a lit­tle sore in the head after the Bolton, I head­ed to Avi­da with my fam­i­ly because appar­ent­ly I had­n’t had enough wine yet.  There we had bub­bles and tried dif­fer­ent vin­tages of the same wines, matched with beau­ti­ful food, as the man from Matahi­wi talked. We did quizzes, I won a bot­tle of dessert wine for my crude insta­gram cap­tions, a love­ly time was had by all. I’ll def­i­nite­ly go back to Avi­da for more of their amaz­ing food (THOSE BALLS!), and I believe I ordered a case or so of the Matahi­wi wine so that will be a thing that hap­pens too. I think this event hap­pens every year, and it was bloody great val­ue at $45.

The Dine dish at Sterling

After tak­ing Sun­day off, today as lunchtime drew near I found myself try­ing to decide what & where exact­ly I should eat. The new­ness of Ster­ling, as well as its pedi­gree being from the mak­ers of Egmont Street Eatery won me over. They’re try­ing to bring life to the Ter­race at night, appar­ent­ly, and giv­en that they’re part of a hotel, maybe they’ll suc­ceed. I hope they do. But to lunch. I am sad that the focus on a Dine dish this year means places are no longer doing two cours­es and a glass of wine for $25 or $35, but hon­est­ly, with pork bel­ly this good, I ain’t got much to com­plain about.

It was a tad on the salty side, which was excel­lent for me, but for a less salty sailor might be a lit­tle much. The water­cress and fen­nel was so refresh­ing against the rich­ness of the pork and pota­to I would have liked a lit­tle more. But those are minor minor quib­bles. The crack­ling was per­fect, crisp, crunchy and with a suc­cu­lent lay­er of fat under it too. I’m going to have to come back to try their burg­er — and then come back for the reg­u­lar menu too. I just hope they con­sid­er their audi­ence and get some mag­a­zines for hotel guests and pub­lic ser­vants who dine alone.

So, that’s me off to a great start. What have YOU been eat­ing?