Yesterday twitter was all atwitter trying to figure out where all the smoke in Wellington was coming from, before someone figured out that it was a fire in Titahi Bay. What’s been interesting today has been the amazing collections of photos of the fire on Flickr – not just in our sidebar or this great shot by Wellingtonista friend Lisa Fur, but also this curated flickr gallery. Nice work, flickrinos!
We’d been wondering for a while where our other favourite McKenzie brother has been at because we haven’t seen him behind the bar at Hooch or Hawthorn for ages, but of course we kept forgetting to ask, because naturally we were too busy asking for another drink.
Well, it turns out that Justin has been working as 42Below’s vodka professor (we hope this means he gets a cap and gown) and he’s been rather busy today with the regional finals of the Cocktail World Cup. The three bartenders who’ll be representing New Zealand will be Auckland’s James Goggin from Racket and our own Josh Crawford from Hooch and Calum Chadwick from the Matterhorn.
As usual, there’s all kinds of fun and games in Queenstown around the event, but since we’re the Wellingtonista probably the bit that you’re interested in is that the grand finale is happening in Wellington on March 27, featuring the world’s best bartenders and (I’m going to quote the press release here) "New Zealand’s best rock group ‘Midnight Youth’", and probably quite a few splashes of vodka as well. And we’ve got a double pass to give away to it!
Along with the invited VIPS, 42BELOW is offering a select number of people the chance to attend the Grand Final Shake off as vodka groupies. Tickets are being sold for $42, which includes four cocktails, food and entertainment so get in quick for a chance to party with New Zealand’s best music and with the world’s best bartenders.
Holy crap, next week is going to be insane. It’s WEBSTOCK WEEK, baby! Expect a proliferation of smart sexy people with smart sexy satchels to be taking over your favourite bars (especially the ones we recommended to them) and discussing mindblowingly awesome concepts. You’re going, right?
And because we don’t want you to get injured from having your mind (and liver) blown without stretching first, we here at the Wellingtonista are super pleased to be hosting an Official Wellingtonista Unofficial Webstock Warm-up on Wednesday 17th at Hashigo Zake from 5pm. Expect lovely people, great prices on some beers thanks to Dominic and perhaps some other special treats. Feel free to come along even if you’re not going to Webstock, although we may point and laugh at you.
If you can’t afford to go to the whole conference, there are still a couple of tickets left to the ONYAs party, which we are assured will be amazing even if we’re not up for any awards.
Or, if none of this floats your boat, you should go to the RASSLIN!
Love bikes? Love frocks? Love Wellington? How about you mix all those things together on Valentine’s Day by taking part in Frocks on Bikes’ Love to Roll event.
All you need is your stylish self, a bike and a sense of joie de vivre! If you don’t have a bike … never fear! Read on…
♥ Lovers to Roll will gather at on Valentine’s Day at 1.30pm on Oriental Parade by Freyberg Pool.
♥ After ensuring everyone’s registered to be in to win our prizes, we will depart on our cruise!
♥ We will cycle at a leisurely pace, on the roads, around the beautiful Wellington bays through Kilbirnie and out to Lyall Bay, with a brief stop outside the Maranui Lifesaving Club around 3pm where any additional Lovers to Roll can join the flock.
♥ We’ll arrive at the Island Bay Festival in Shorland Park, where we will take to the Festival stage in the Pavilion to announce the winners of our fantastic prizes!
♥ After it’s all over, you can either return to the city with us or independently.If you’re currently short of a steed, don’t worry – the awesome Green Bike Trust is bringing a fleet of brand-new bikes for Lovers to Roll to hire (only $10!), but bookings are essential!Lovers to Roll who register are in to be lucky winners! There will be intense competition for the coveted title of Best-Matched Bike & Rider Team, the Most Loved-Up Bike award, the Best-Dressed Couple award, and the grand prize – the title of R&R Supreme Frocker! Up for grabs are superb prizes from our generous donors:
We noticed Davis Food Mart pop up on the corner of Taranaki Street and Karo Drive a little before Xmas, so we decided it was time to check it out to see if Mt Cook now has a proper supermarket to call its own.
It doesn’t.
But, we did find some very interesting things anyway, and you can read more about them after the break.
So, Julia Deans, singer in the TAWA-nominated Fur Patrol and all-around pretty lady has a solo album coming out this year. The first single off it is called "A new dialogue" and it has a rather lovely video. Enjoy!
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCFHkYYK_4Q]Annoyingly, Osteria Del Toro doesn’t appear to have a website. However, what they do have is an awesome alternative to yum cha on Sundays (and I think it’s only Sunday afternoons) called La Famigia.
For $29, you can experience their menu highlights "family-style". What this means is that you can help yourself to the lush antipasto table, piled high with salads, olives, salami and amazing foccacia, and then the very nice staff will start bringing food to your table, and they won’t stop until you ask them to. You get pizzas from their woodfired oven, paella, pasta and roast chicken with crispy skin. It really is a carb-lover’s paradise.
One kind of pasta has meatballs, and the other is pesto, and we got both vegetarian and meaty pizza. The paella had both chorizo and seafood in it, so it might not be the most cost-effective & welcoming option for vegetarians (and vegans – forget about it!). We were all people who love us some gluten, so we didn’t ask if it was possible to get their gluten-free pizza bases instead, so I can’t advise you about that. I can, however, assure you that their white wine sangria made with apricot brandy and ginger beer is a perfect accompaniment (their PDF menu says it features a "Make your own Bloody Mary bar" but I didn’t see that!), and that you probably DON’T need to order churros afterwards, but perhaps you will anyway!
We’ve written about UP’s Bloggers Predict event before, but this time, I’m one of the people doing the predicting on January 28 from 5.30pm to 8pm. I’m supposed to be making predictions in the following areas:
I’m allowed (and encouraged) to solicit suggestions, so have at it in the comments and I’d encourage you to focus on Wellington-ish suggestions in particular, since I’m representing the Wellingtonista, after all. Oh, and make sure you register to come along to the event, there’s FREE BOOZE and food, and you’ll be done by 8 so you can go along to any other events that might be happening that night afterwards.
This is the extended version of today’s piece in the summer section of the Dominion Post.
So recently we asked you where you would drink Montana’s new-label Sav Blanc, and you told us. The randomizer.org threw the numbers 2 and 8 at us, so congratulations to Cat and Marshall. If you could please send an email to johubris at gmail with your address, I’ll get your wine out to you. Cheers!