I have clear­ly timed career moves bad­ly, because in the hun­gry wait for Welling­ton on a Plate I was unem­ployed and spent large parts of the day dream­ing about where and what I would eat, but now it’s on, I have a tem­po­rary job and it’s not in the CBD. Dis­as­ter!

How­ev­er, it turned out that the sub­urbs are where it’s at when I rolled into Floy­d’s in Island Bay. It was a cold day (although before this cur­rent snow weath­er), and the light colours of the inte­ri­or are a bit stark on a grey day, but I was wel­comed warm­ly. I was guid­ed to menus, water was brought in an old fash­ioned cream bot­tle, the table was checked for wob­bli­ness, and I was asked if I want­ed the paper — as it turns out I was much hap­pi­er with one of their many cur­rent issues of Who. Less than ten min­utes after I’d ordered, my Island Bay Butch­ery pork spare ribs with pick­led cher­ries were placed in front of me.

The speed at which they came out was much appre­ci­at­ed for a week­day lunch option. The meat was­n’t exact­ly falling off the bone like ribs can some­times be, but much sat­is­fied gnaw­ing was had. The cher­ry sauce was sur­pris­ing­ly spicy, tem­pered a lit­tle by the pars­ley, and I real­ly appre­ci­at­ed the fin­ger­bowl, and that new nap­kins appeared like mag­ic. Short­ly after my bones were clear­ly away, I received my olive oil-poached cod on a green bean, black olive and caper sal­ad with Hae­wai Mead­ery mead vinai­grette.

I sup­pose the word “sal­ad” should have clued me in, but I was still a lit­tle suprised that the fish was cold. There was­n’t an over­whelm­ing olive oil taste either, which is prob­a­bly a good thing. The let­tuce and beans were aston­ish­ing­ly fresh and full of flavour, and if I’d been a caper fan, I would have been hap­py to dis­cov­er them in berry form as well as the con­ven­tion­al buds. Thi s would have been a great meal for a hot day. Luck­i­ly, the Pen­car­row chardon­nay along with the excel­lence ser­vice warmed up my bel­ly.

Hav­ing a fish sal­ad felt so vir­tu­ous that I got a piece of caramel slice to take away, and it was lush. I will def­i­nite­ly be return­ing to Floy­d’s in the future for their reg­u­lar menu, and they’re a shin­ing bea­con of just how good ser­vice can be in Welling­ton.