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 […]