Author: Joanna

Road safety: ur doing it wrong

Just look at these young galahs hijinksing it along the road. In MY day we did School Patrol purely for a milo in winter, and yet these kids get a parade? Shock­ing. And what kind of mes­sage are we send­ing them that it’s okay to walk on the road. It’s PC GONE MAD, THAT’S WHAT IT IS!

Room for Improvement: Round Two

Last night while the Wel­ling­tonista and FAGs and SAGs (that’s Friends and Girl­friends, and also Sis­ters and Girl­friends, there were no Part­ners present) were at South­ern Cross quiz, we real­ised that hey, they don’t give us chipped glasses any­more! That means things have got bet­ter since we com­plained about them. It has also been noted that since we bitched about the decor at the Port Cafe, they have in fact rein­stated a cheap­er menu for takeaway, which is a good thing. So, to con­tin­ue on from those great devel­op­ments, here’s some more sug­ges­tions as we strive for per­fec­tion.

1. That the Cross gets a $35 wine. We’re bored of drink­ing the $30 Five Flax, and we feel like the jump up to $40 as the next cheapest wine on their list is too big a jump. We appre­ci­ate that their Matariki Cab/Merlot and Ata Ran­gi Rose are lovely, but we’d settle for some­thing less awe­some for less pricey.

2. That Word of Mouth labels its salads. It sucks to queue for ages for what you think is going to be yummy coleslaw with kumara, only to dis­cov­er that (eww!) there is tuna in the mix. They have a pen­cil-writ­ten list on their wall, with meat, dairy and aller­gens high­lighted, but it does need a lot of peer­ing at to read. And yes, we know they change their salads every day, but really, would it take that long to print out labels and stick them in a little per­spex thingie on top of the counter?

3. That Viva Mex­ico start offer­ing sides. I’d pay extra for guacamole and salsa if I had the option. Also, we’d love them to get a BYO license and extend their hours.

4. In fact, let’s get all of Left­bank a BYO license, and make the centre tables more com­mun­al, so groups of people can pick­’n mix their din­ners. 5. I know this is a very long shot, but can we please have these train-buses too?

This should be more popular: Chef’s Cafe

At the top of Cuba Street, oppos­ite Fidel’s and next to a sex shop is what appears to be a crappy little tea room named Chef’s Cafe. You might think that they’re going to try and sell you a pie and a cus­tard square, but you could­n’t be more wrong. See that little sand­wich board out­side that says “Takeaway Curry $10”? That’s right, this is an Indi­an res­taur­ant. And it’s good. And it’s insanely cheap*. If you dine in, you’re look­ing at a cost of around $12.90 for a meat curry, rice and naan. The decor is admit­tedly noth­ing at all to look at, but the menu is really extens­ive and the cur­ries do actu­ally all taste dis­tinct­ive and tasty, rather than just com­ing in dif­fer­ent col­ours of the same slop (cough cough Tulsi). Plus, it’s BYO, and not just wine – the cork­age on a small bottle of beer is $1, and $2 for big bottles. We really think you should try it out. We would like it to have more pat­ron­age. Just not on Tues­day nights, because that’s when we go before the Quiz around the corner at the Cross.

* If you work on the basis that most Indi­an places charge at least $15 for a curry, and that does­n’t include naan and in some cases does­n’t even include rice.

Blood and violence on the streets

So let’s say you’re a little bit unhinged, and you’re tired of pick­ing up hook­ers on Mari­on Street and then run­ning them over. What you really want is to stay home and play Grand Theft Auto, but you hate the fake New York­ness of it all, and wish it could be a little bit more like home. Well we’ve got just the link for you – skin your game so that the police cars, tax­is and ambu­lances are all famil­i­ar Wel­ling­ton sights!

And of course, what’s a GTA story without some mor­al out­rage sur­pris­ingly sup­port­ive com­ment­ary from Break­fast News?

Salivate over Cellar Vate’s winemakers’ dinners

Remem­ber that time that I went to Cap­it­ol for a Seris­en wine din­ner that cost $85 and was frick­ing amaz­ing? Well it turns out that there’s some­thing sim­il­ar hap­pen­ing every month at Cel­lar-Vate, but for only $35! Holy crap! So, in order to invest­ig­ate this phe­nomen­on for you, my dear read­er, my fear­less din­ing com­pan­ion Kar­en and I sub­jec­ted ourselves to six courses of food matched with Clear­view wines last night. Oh the human­ity.

It’s such a hard­ship to sit down to dine with new people just wait­ing to become your friends, Rachel from Cel­lar­vate who took the time to explain her menu selec­tions, and two people from the winery to chat to. Food was served on com­mun­al plates, and while it was­n’t huge amounts of any­thing, even Kar­en and I, who do like our food a lot, left sat­is­fied. You need to go to Cel­lar Vate on Moles­worth and ask them to put you on their mail­ing list so you can come along to the next diner. The menu after the jump.

It’s Friday, so tell us a story

Noone really does any work on Fri­days, do they? So instead, tell us a story about one of your most mem­or­able nights out in Wel­ling­ton in the com­ments sec­tion. We’re look­ing for loc­a­tion, loc­a­tion, loc­a­tion, and what you choose to dis­close is entirely up to you. Just enter­tain us. Thank you. My story will fol­low very shortly.

Wishing for a better world

Wish­bone have put up the prices of most of its food by $1, so now you will pay $7.50 for their cran­berry, chick­en and brie sand­wich (luck­ily, next door to my loc­al Wish­bone is the Con­corde Cafe where I can get a crusty baguette filled with salami and cheese, and a mys­tic­al half olive for a bar­gain $3.50). They say that it is the rising cost of pet­rol that has forced them into it. We say that maybe if they invest­ig­ated ways to reduce the ridicu­lous amount of plastic that their food comes in, the cost of pet­rol would­n’t affect them quite as much.

PS: Their black plastic boxes are #5, which can­’t be col­lec­ted, but you can take them in to Com­mon­sense Organ­ics who will recycle them for you. If you’re that ded­ic­ated. We think that Wish­bone should take them back too.

Monster May Book Sale at Vic Books

We know that we’ve men­tioned their sales in the past, but we know that you like books, and dis­counts, and also free wine, and that is why we must let you know that once again, Vic Books is start­ing its sale of awe­some­ness.

It starts with drinks, nibbles & great books with ridicu­lously low prices from about 4pm, Thursday 1st May, in the Kel­burn shop. The sale runs in both shops until Thursday 22nd May, and they have two spe­cial “dis­count days”: 25% off all non-fic­tion not already dis­coun­ted on Thursday 8th May; 25% off all fic­tion not already dis­coun­ted on Thursday 15th May.

And remem­ber – if you’re too lazy to walk up the hill, you can take the Cable Car, or the num­bers 17, 20 and 23 buses to get there, or check out Vic Books down at the Rail­way Sta­tion if you’re not so keen on fic­tion.

Do you like to drink and/or network?

Recently the Wel­ling­tonista were sent an email from “Dave, Design­er fella in Wel­ling­ton” enquir­ing wheth­er we thought that Wel­ling­to­ni­an Cre­at­ive Web Design Folk might fancy the oppor­tun­ity to meet up monthly; to drink, dis­cuss related stuff and net­work.

Our response was:
“Web people get­ting togeth­er to drink (and talk geek), you have to ask?”

But we thought we’d ask you any­way. We do appre­ci­ate that there are many sorts of sub com­mit­tees that hap­pen organ­ic­ally, but they’re all sub styles. So how about it, Web Cre­at­ive folk? Leave your com­ments and thoughts here for Dave to col­lect. And please feel free to con­trib­ute ideas for ven­ues and spon­sor­ship while you’re at it.

RASSLIN!

Sure, it’s a bit late notice, but hey, what are you doing tonight? Don’t do that. Instead, you should come to THE RASSLIN! Doors at Wel­ling­ton High open at 6.45pm for a 7.30pm start, but if you’re a first time goer and you need a sup­port group, meet us at the South­ern Cross from 5.30 for some stiff­en­ing drinks first. We’ll be the loud group wear­ing lots of purple in sup­port for Purple Haze, “New Zeal­and’s Sex­ist Masked Man” ™. Ser­i­ously, I’m sure you don’t believe me, but wrest­ling is quite pos­sibly the most awe­some thing ever. Read my account of the last time I went if you need fur­ther con­vin­cing!