The TGIF wander

Last Fri­day’s TGIF wander reminded me of some of the char­ac­ter­ful, fun and tasty small ven­ues we have around the city (in this case the Cour­tenay quarter). Firstly a ‘You Sexy Thing’ mock­tail at Vinyl bar.  A creamy chai and car­a­mel cre­ation which hit the spot nicely on a warm sum­mer­’s even­ing. There’s some­thing about […]

Happy tasty new year…

We’ve been silent a while haven’t we.  Here’s a few tasty (and gen­er­ally health­i­er) morsels and a tipple I’ve tripped over through New Years: Plum café’s birch­er muesli – oats, almond milk, greek yoghurt, fresh mango and toasted coconut. Pleas­ing dens­ity and fla­vour. Ombra’s mush­room parmes­an and rock­et ciabatta break­fast (8am-12noon).  Such a bet­ter time of […]

Naughty but nice

In the run-up to Xmas here’s some deli­cious eats and drinks around town I might have had to sample recently: CGR Merchant’s salted car­a­mel infused rum and the best value $15 cheese­board ever had. Betty’s dry iced shar­ing teapot cock­tails. Fri­day and Sat­urday even­ings only. Hideaway’s pecan pie.  Twice. Any­thing AroBake – baby xmas mince […]

Just spotted.…

Beer-[and Firetruck, Goose Shack and Tommy Millions]-a-licious… (for those without micro­scopes – food stalls, live music, beer and oth­er nice stuff at the Brew­ery on Vivi­an Street 12noon-8pm on Sat 6 Dec, Sat 31 Jan, Sat 21 Feb)

Nga Manu Nature Reserve (Waikanae)

Yep, its not food.  But I was ser­i­ously impressed with this place in our back yard that I had no clue exis­ted. Nga Manu is the largest remain­ing rem­nant of coastal low­land swamp forest on the Kapiti Coast, and was estab­lished as a reserve in 1974.  It has developed over the years to the well laid […]

Long live the Long Lunch

The Mediterranean’s have it right. I went to the Logan Brown Novem­ber Fresh Fri­day lunch club today. Sean (Clou­s­ton) decides on the dishes each week based on what’s fresh and appeal­ing at the mar­kets and his travels and wal­lah! What a fant­ast­ic way to get into the week­end groove. Today’s courses were LB bread and gazpacho […]

Another Laneways opportunity…

On the back of the suc­cess­ful Han­nahs Lane­way event dur­ing WOAP, the Ti Kouka et al folks are at it again – this Sat­urday with a Day of the Dead Fiesta. These cel­eb­ra­tions in Mex­ico are tra­di­tion­ally a three-day event from 31 Octo­ber to 2 Novem­ber to remem­ber those who are no longer with us.  For more […]

New nosh

There’s a few new eat­ing places of prom­in­ence opened or open­ing shortly for your (mostly) car­ni­vor­ous pleas­ure. Poneke have opened beneath the new Clyde Quay apart­ments – a mar­riage between Mojo (usu­al café ambi­ence and cab­in­et fare) and Mar­tin Bos­ley (meals). I’m not com­pletely sold on the price points (espe­cially for the small plates), but […]

Do I look like a burger yet?

So a fur­ther update on the WOAP menus and bur­gers (some just because they’re with­in easy strik­ing dis­tance of one’s cor­por­ate work­place)… Pan de Muerto’s Mol­lete (pic­tured minus its lid for pho­to­graph­ic pur­poses) was pretty good but could have done with more pork in pro­por­tion to the nasty beans. Charlie Bill’s Miss Piggy is Hot to […]

A stomach explosion…

And not as a res­ult of the Cook­ing with Ice: Liquid Nitro­gen demo. Yes this middle of the night post is a dir­ect res­ult of WOAP week­end eyes-big­ger-than-stom­ach issues.  I some­how man­aged to have three events this first week­end, and to squeeze in a bur­ger as well (plus observe oth­ers squeez­ing in more). So to the bur­gers […]