Zesty success

So I’m going to declare right up front that I work for Zest Food Tours of New Zealand before I con­grat­u­late them on 10 years of suc­cess this month.  No mean feat in the some­­times-fick­­le tourism/hospitality indus­try. And rat­ed one of the world’s top 10 Walk­ing Tours for Glo­be­trot­ting Food­ies by Lone­ly Plan­et this year. […]

Wine-o-clock

It seems its wine-o-clock time again. Grey­town, Mar­t­in­bor­ough and Glad­stone are wak­ing up from win­ter and prepar­ing for Toast Mar­t­in­bor­ough next week­end.  The tick­ets are all sold for this year oth­er than some pack­ages with Rydges if you’re super keen (bear in mind that does mean a sloshy old bus ride over that hill and […]

Another birthday, black pudding hotdogs, and 2:1 steak

The birth­day first.  Since I seem to be on a birth­day roll late­ly. Ti Kou­ka cel­e­brat­ed their 3rd birth­day on Fri­day just gone (well done guys). Even though I couldn’t make lunch with free bub­bles, I did man­age to grab deli­cious car­rot cake for after­noon tea (pure­ly for cel­e­bra­to­ry pur­pos­es you under­stand), and con­firm their […]

Birthdays, beer and burgers

I hope you all had won­der­ful long week­ends (or at least parts of it if hav­ing to work). So many mem­o­rable eats and drinks this week, I’ll try and be suc­cinct. But what a won­der­ful reminder of the diver­si­ty and oppor­tu­ni­ties in Welling­ton City. Mat­ter­horn are hav­ing their 50th birth­day cel­e­bra­tions over the next month, […]

More smart youngsters

I’ve been away this week­end, so not too much to report about what’s been eat­ing in the city oth­er than it’s Mat­ter­horn’s 50th birth­day month (yep I was a bit slow cot­ton­ing onto that one), the Bureau is open on the Ter­race (pri­or Liq­ui­date folks), and Charley Noble is up and run­ning (check out more […]

Visiting old friends…

I feel like I’ve been vis­it­ing old friends this week, while I wait for some new ones to arrive. A Deluxe cafe cook­ie, a Nikau brunch, a Zibib­bo plat­ter, and a Capi­tol break­fast (can you tell it was a teenage-free week­end??). My cook­ie at Deluxe was enlivened by an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion with a fel­low cus­tomer […]

A new bru, whisky scones and L’Affaire au Chocolat

The old Fringe Bar on the cor­ner of Vivian and Cuba has mor­phed into Bru on Cuba. Call­ing it a craft beer bar would be a bit of an over­state­ment (albeit pleas­ant enough with dark wood decor and leather couch­es), it places com­fort­ably in the chill out/sports bar space, with Bound­ary Road and Scot­tish Brew […]

Tom Yum, frangipane and seafood chowder

What’s fea­tur­ing in my mem­o­ry this week? Tom Yum sweet and sour soup from Thai Chef, Can­teen’s shell­fish bouil­l­abaisse and pear and frangi­pane tart, and Rach’s seafood chow­der at the City Mar­ket. Over a group catchup, we decid­ed the Tom Yum sweet and sour soup at Thai Chef was ide­al for a sore throat (and […]

Tequila, sangria and ugali

I haven’t real­ly spent the whole week at bars, but Tequi­la Joe’s and Avi­da were both on the agen­da this week, as was the new Afri­ka on Cam­bridge Ter­race (for­mer­ly the Moroc­can Casablan­ca). Tequi­la Joe’s is in the for­mer Shi­no­bi Sushi premis­es on Vivian Street near the cor­ner of Tory; the result of a Detroit […]

Crème brulee, a winning burger and the cancan

This week I have to men­tion Hashigoza­ke, Ti Kouka’s win­ning WOAP burg­er and Newtown’s Can­can. The first find was a long-sought New York Crème Brulee stout at Hashigoza­ke, yippee!  After a year’s with­draw­al from said nec­tar (yes you do need a sweet tooth), it went down nice­ly with goat penang pie and left one hap­pi­ly […]