Our week­ly roundup of best things in Welling­ton con­tin­ues and this week we’ve got con­tri­bu­tions from Alan, Joan­na, Martha and Tom.

Best new place for dogs off leash

an extremely fluffy small dog

We dis­cov­ered that dogs are ok unleashed on the Remu­ta­ka Incline so we were able to take our fluff­beast bik­ing with us (she’s got her own bike seat for when she gets tired). This was a good thing! - Alan

(Edi­tor’s note: Despite appear­ing to be a very large Dulux dog, Eib­h­neas is appar­ent­ly an an extreme­ly fluffy small dog, a Tibetan ter­ri­er to be spe­cif­ic, which makes the vision of her rid­ing on a bike slight­ly less com­i­cal. Sor­ry.)

Best indulgence: three milks! In this economy!

The Tres Lech­es cake from Viva Mex­i­co ($12) is a ridicu­lous­ly rich and sweet kind of tri­fle that does­n’t both­er with fruit or jel­ly.

tres leches cake in a plastic cup

One day I will actu­al­ly write up all the tiramisu I have tried around town, but for now know this is a great sub­sti­tute if you don’t like cof­fee. And heed my advice bet­ter that I do, and don’t try and eat the whole thing by your­self in one sit­ting. Oooooof. - Joan­na

Best synchronicity of another Wellingtonista also enjoying a leche-based dessert (along with a pie)

Mairana's kitchen sign

I had an excel­lent chick­en and leek pie and sal­ad at Mariana’s Kitchen at the Low­er Hutt War Memo­r­i­al Library and it was only $12.50. Gor­geous spot to sit in the sun. I took home a pan de leche for lat­er. - Martha

Best use of being really open about your diagnosis because it makes the world a better place when people are able to be honest and accommodated

May­or Tory Whanau. And though I too have ADHD, it should­n’t take being neu­rospicy to see that hon­est­ly, most meet­ings could be and should be just 15 min­utes long instead of an hour! - Joan­na

Best weird little guys: native orchids

little native orchid

There’s not much flow­er­ing in the nga­here right now, but a few species of native orchid are at their peak in win­ter. The east­ern hills are good places to see them, and here are two spec­i­mens of win­ter green­hood (Pterostylis alob­u­la) and pix­ie cap (Acianthus sin­clairii) that I snapped just now a few min­utes walk from the Days Bay fer­ry. They’re far from showy and only a few cen­time­tres tall, so they can take some find­ing, but the­ses weird lit­tle guys can be worth the hunt. - Tom B

Worst departure from Twitter

The Welling­ton City Coun­cil social media team, a cou­ple of weeks ago. Admit­ted­ly, this is fair enough because a) twit­ter is awful and b) peo­ple on social media are awful (see: how in Nel­son 46 peo­ple were gen­er­at­ing 25% of all the work) but now who’s going to pro­vide me with speedy answers about what­ev­er road­works are hap­pen­ing at night in Thorn­don? I’m going to have to… go on Face­book?

But seri­ous­ly, Simone and Mol­ly are among the very best in the busi­ness, and well done Welling­ton City Coun­cil for trust­ing them to do their job and empow­er­ing them to shut down racist dick­heads. - Joan­na

Best bonus picture of Alan’s dog

very floofy dog

(any­one else remem­ber when this was ‑not- the kind of dog­ging loca­tion we used to talk about?