So much on our plates!

There’s only three days left of Wel­ling­ton on a Plate, but there’s still a vast array of fest­iv­al dishes and bur­gers to choose from, so if you can face the com­bined WOAP and rugby crowds this week­end, here are some of our high­lights.

Five & Dime hide a sur­pris­ingly soph­ist­ic­ated kit­chen behind their tiny bar, and their Dine Wel­ling­ton menu con­sisted of four courses of del­ic­ate innov­a­tion. Almond gazpacho was delight­fully subtle, almost bland on its own but the per­fect foil for the jew­el-like pickled grapes, leaves and oth­er col­our­ful delights that floated on its creamy sur­face. Instead of beer or wine, for an accom­pa­ny­ing fest­iv­al drink we chose their “Wel­ling­ton slush­ie”, a crisp but fruity con­coc­tion of Light­house gin and hibis­cus.

We fol­lowed this with line-caught Alba­core tuna ceviche (which more resembled kokoda or ika mata with its coconutty sweet­ness), grilled sardine put­tan­esca, and breaded salt and pep­per lamb cut­lets that were a sur­pris­ingly suc­cess­ful blend of east and west, com­bin­ing Sichuan spices with a hum­mus base. Dessert was spec­tac­u­lar: sticks of pine­apple fried in kataifi-like shred­ded pastry, accom­pan­ied by mouth­wa­ter­ing dai­quiri Kāpiti ice cream, with diverse accom­pani­ments such as salted car­a­mel praline, lime zest and dark chocol­ate rendered into dusts, blobs and wafers.

Their sis­ter estab­lish­ment Five Bor­oughs sticks to hearti­er fare. I could­n’t face the infam­ous Turduck­en Down bur­ger (my arter­ies would nev­er talk to me again), so instead went with their short Dine Wel­ling­ton menu. The braised beef pot roast from Island Bay Butchery was adequately tender, while still retain­ing enough tex­ture to get your teeth into, with a rich meat­i­ness enhanced by fresh herbs and a touch of spice in the com­fort­ingly heavy sauce. The potato gratin was a little light on the prom­ised emment­al, but when put togeth­er with mul­ti­col­oured baby car­rots the whole dish was a suc­cess.

Again, the dessert stood out. The baked but­ter­milk pie had enough tang to off­set its innate heav­i­ness, but the sauces elev­ated it to anoth­er level. A dense pool of Wel­ling­ton Chocol­ate Fact­ory chocol­ate hid tex­tur­al sur­prises of hazel­nuts and pret­zel praline, and just a smat­ter­ing of rhu­barb cut through all that sweet­ness.

Grill Meats Beer made a wise struc­tur­al choice when design­ing their Lamb Shank Redemp­tion: braised shank tends to fall apart in a sloppy mess, so they put it on firm spiced lamb patty to hold it all togeth­er. The res­ult was not just good engin­eer­ing, but good eats, with intriguing tex­tur­al and fla­vour con­trasts between the two present­a­tions. Adding roast pump­kin, beet­root, feta and pine nut aioli cre­ated such a win­ning com­bin­a­tion that I’ll even for­give their inser­tion of point­less, scratchy baby kale. The accom­pa­ny­ing Gar­age Pro­ject Persephone was a bit tart and unbal­anced on its own, but when I drank it along with the bur­ger, both food and drink sprang into magic­al focus.

Out in Miramar, Park Kit­chen went for a rad­ic­al inter­pret­a­tion of bur­ger­hood that is sure to annoy the pur­ists. The con­vo­luted name (Beef Pat Tie “Wel­ling­ton”) gives a hint that this takes some cues from Beef Wel­ling­ton, and indeed the beef is entirely con­tained with­in the bri­oche bun, with salad ele­ments stacked sep­ar­ately on the tray beside it. It’s not even topo­lo­gic­ally equi­val­ent to the Pla­ton­ic bur­ger, and the sup­posed Wel­ling­ton-ness extends only to the enclos­ure of the meat, not to the inclu­sion of pâté and duxelles, which are replaced by smoked beet­root and smoked pro­volone. Nev­er­the­less, in the way that James K Bax­ter could write “son­nets” while dis­pens­ing with their canon­ic­al rhyme scheme and yet make them entirely his own, this “bur­ger” is suc­cess­ful in its own right.

The Bresolin stuck with a much more con­ven­tion­al approach, and in fact on paper their Fowl Play did­n’t seem much dif­fer­ent from their stand­ard fried chick­en bur­ger. Pickled jalapeños were the main dif­fer­ence, but the Amer­ic­an cheese slice and Mis­sis­sippi-inspired ‘comeback sauce’ com­pleted the Deep South con­nec­tion. The res­ult was­n’t ground­break­ing, but we both fin­ished our bur­gers before we knew it: it’s ridicu­lously, dan­ger­ously edible.

Their fest­iv­al cock­tail, Cap­tain Nemo’s Demise, is a little edgi­er, at least in its choice of intensely savoury accoutre­ments. Gin goes com­fort­ably enough with rose­mary, honey, lem­on and bit­ters, and the sea salt rim brings a touch of Mar­gar­itaville to the party. But things then get even salti­er, with a white anchovy, gar­lic-stuffed olive, cor­nichon and pickled chili all har­pooned togeth­er atop the glass. Stranger things have happened at sea, but rarely this deli­ciously.

If the Bresolin’s bur­ger offer­ing hints towards fast-food styl­ings (one of the staff described it as “like McDon­ald’s, only edible”), Ti Kouka makes their homage expli­cit with their “TKFC bur­ger”. There are many sim­il­ar­it­ies, but with hints of exoti­cism in kim­chi salt, tasso ham and smoked cheese. Many of those sub­tleties got lost in the mix, but the res­ult was, like the Fowl Play, declared to be more­ish and well-bal­anced.

The fest­iv­al dishes were a little more adven­tur­ous. I chose what was effect­ively a very sly take on a chick­en Caesar salad, only with pulled con­fit chick­en that had been crumbed and fried, res­ult­ing in a glor­i­ous tex­tur­al con­trast between melt­ingly tender con­fit and crispy crumbs. The egg has been fried after poach­ing, provid­ing an intriguingly firm white, and the Caesar-stand­ard ingredi­ents of ice­berg lettuce, croutons and sardine aioli (in place of anchovies) was enlivened by a few items not men­tion on the menu, includ­ing crisp lavosh-like wafers and what I took to be rich nug­gets of bacon.

Dessert also provided stud­ied con­trasts in fla­vours and tex­tures. Panna cotta was fla­voured with Gar­age Pro­ject’s Cherry Bomb port­er, its silky wobble com­ple­men­ted by firm­ness and crunch in the form of cocoa husk and coconut rough. There’s some­thing both mel­an­choly and hope­ful about cher­ries this far out of sea­son: their deflated soft­ness recall­ing the faded glory of last sum­mer, while their sweet­ness looks for­ward to the sum­mer to come.