More food reviews that you can stomach
So y’all asked for more food reviews with pics, so today I am going to do short reviews of the following places:
- The Ambeli
- The Grill at the Duxton
- Lagerfield as a function venue
- St John’s Restaurant
I hope you don’t mind that I’ve put them all in one post.
Eat and eat and eat: win a voucher for the Occidental
Congratulations to Richard who you will find hiding away at Munchen Burger getting his borsct on. This week we’ve got our last prize to give away, thanks to celebrate Wellington on a Plate, thanks to the lovely Positively Wellington Tourism, we have a $100 voucher to The Occidental to give away.
New Zealand’s Next Top City
Writing recaps of New Zealand’s Next Top Model is something that I’d normally do over at Pretty Pretty Pretty, but since the first episode of Season Two was filmed in Wellington (nice work, Positively Tourism!), I thought I might put up some thoughts on all the places that they shot.
- The girls stay at
The Museum Hotel, which one girl describes as “pristine”, while another expresses surprise that they’re not staying in a backpackers’ to save money. It’s cute that she knows about budgets, and hopefully she’ll learn about product placement sooner rather than later. The Museum Hotel is indeed a gorgeous space, and the bathtubs are so big that you could probably fit all 13 girls in at once. There is in fact a clip of them all sitting in a spa later but I couldn’t figure out if it was at th hotel or out at Boomrock. - For their first catwalk experience, the girls are charged with stomping around the Water Whirler – which we’d already read about on Stuff. It was reassuring to see how bad most of the girls were at walking in heels, but a warning: if you’re thinking about trying to recreate this scene, security guards will have a very different idea about what ‘fierce’ is. You are not allowed on the Water Whirler.
- Because every tourist venture needs a montage, we get to see the girls with Solace in the Wind (a less polite person than me would comment on how Mr Solace appears to be more animated – and articulate – than some of them) and getting excited about shopping in the Old Bank Arcade.
Site upgrade
Hey all, just did a site upgrade (from Drupal 5.something to 6.17, for those that are interested).
I seem to have lost some comments off the last couple of posts — they should be recoverable and back online tomorrow.
If you notice anything else amiss, drop us a line at our info email address.
(Incidentally, this new theme is temporary — we’re working away on another one in the background — this one was just easier to use with the upgraded system instead of upgrading the old theme, which was riddled with, errr, idiosyncratic code).
Eat and eat and eat: win a voucher for Sojourn at the James Cook Grand Chancellor
Congratulations to Tracey who wants to be burgered senseless but will also be enjoying a good time at the General Practitioner as well. This week, to celebrate Wellington on a Plate, thanks to the lovely Positively Wellington Tourism, we have a $100 voucher to Sojourn Cafe in the James Cook Grand Chancellor to give away.
It’s true that hotel cafes might not be the first place that springs to mind when you’re thinking about where to eat, but maybe it’s time to reconsider. Sojourn’s lunch special during Wellington on a Plate sounds delicious:
Lunch Offer – $25 set menu
Choose any two courses plus a glass of Wellington regional wine, and a cup of tea or coffee
Starter
Smoked salmon timbale, filled horseradish, cream cheese, olives and artichokes orMozzarella wrapped in zucchini over aubergine galette with a vino cotto reduction
Mains
Chargrilled lamb rump over potato gratin infused by rosemary, served with chicory and radicchio orPoached thresher shark laid over a Chardonnay risotto infused by lemon pepper and rustic tomato sauce
Yummy cha?
A group of eight of us went to Yum Cha on Saturday at Regal, above SMK on Courtenay Place, because I had a massive craving for chive pancakes. Spoiler alert: we didn’t get any chive pancakes. In fact, the whole thing was kind of lame.
Although we were pretty near the door to the kitchen, we were at the end of the food service, so almost every plate that managed to make its way to us was cold. We waited long times between tea refills, and often servers totally skipped us, taking good-looking food back into the kitchen without bothering to offer it to us. My dining companions suggested it was because our table was empty of dishes that they thought we didn’t want anything else. Actually, our table was empty because we weren’t offered very much! For a table full of white people, the fried dumplings that we craved were in very short supply. We begged for roast pork when the table next to us snaffled the last plate (the server ignored our "OMG PLEASE COME HERE!" looks), but were told there was no more. We got on to a second rotation of dishes without being full because of the delays between getting plates. Only the coconut buns were truly amazing. And there were no chive pancakes! That combinded with Macaroni-Gate later that night at Monterey (they’d run out of mac’n cheese! OH GOD THE PAIN) was almost enough to make a girl cry.
So, what I want to know is, where should we go next time for Yum Cha, where the food will be served hot, it’ll be plentiful, there’ll be lots of fried stuff for my Whitey McWhite tastes, and I can get my chive pancake on?
I’d like to lodge a compliment, please
I spent two weeks living on the 28th floor of a hotel in Tokyo when I was ten, and ever since then, I have been obsessed with hotels. As you probably know, here at the Wellingtonista, we’re also very fond of free food and drink, so when the Travelodge invited us to for Cocktails & Canapes, of course we responded enthusiastically.
The Travelodge is off Glimer Terrace, going up and down the Plimmer Steps. It used to be the Copthorne, but for the past year it’s been part of the (Australian) Toga Hospitality. The rooms have all been done up, and then their function areas, and finally Steps Restaurant, so they threw themselves a shindig to celebrate.
When we arrived, navigating a maze of escalators and lifts up from Lambton Quay, I was momentarily all atwitter with "Wine is NOT a cocktail, dammit!" but then I realised that we were drinking bubbly with strawberry liqueur in it, and that does indeed count, so I retract my tweet. The canapes, meanwhile, were delicious. Vegetable tempura was hot and amazingly crisp, lamb meatballs super flavoursome, the prawns looked good if you like that sort of thing, crostini were plentiful and the pork belly with apple sauce was a nice idea although it could have been a bit more crackled. And then after speeches, out came dessert canapes – fruit tarts, mini pavlovas and truly excellent brownies. It was a great range of food, and there was mountains of it, ferried around by lovely staff. Based on that, I would have no hesitation in recommending Steps Restaurant for a function if you are looking for a hotel environment.
Hoko Kai on the Waterfront
Te wiki o te Reo Maori is drawing to a close, with the finale being held at the markets on the waterfront this Sunday. This year’s theme is ‘te mahi kai’ (the language of food) and what better place to celebrate than the food markets on Wellington’s waterfront.
So go grab your fruit, vege and gourmet goodies from Harbourside and City Markets and live the language of food in te reo. There will be biligual signage, haka, waiata and the release of the a biligual CD of songs Tipi Haere Te Reo.
Formalities kick of 8.00am at Harbourside Market and there will be entertainment until midday.
Over at the City Market (inside the Chaffers apartment building) they will be doing what they do best: making us drool with treats from their kitchen.
Te Kihini Makete i tenei wiki: Kau tunuumu Greytown, hupa paukena Pinehaven penu ma te mina-auahi, he paku hirikaka me te kokonati,Wairarapa pai ika, pai kaimoana, Kawakawa parauni.
Market kitchen this week: Braised Greytown beef, manuka smoked mash Pinehaven pumpkin (paukena) soup, hint of chilli & coconut Wairarapa fish pie, dill mash. Kawakawa brownie.
Kaua e whakama ki te korero maori.
(Again apologies: macrons give our site indigestion)
Set your brain on fire with Ignite
So many presentations are like really really weak broth, with only a hint of actual content floating around in far too much weak sauce. If only we could turn up the heat on that soup and simmer it down to a concentrated jus bursting with flavour and taste. Wouldn’t that be awesome? No filler, just killer! That’s what the Ignite series of talks aims to do:
Have you ever been to a 60-minute talk and lamented that there was only five minutes of good content? Imagine if you could hear only that five minutes…
that’s Ignite Wellington!
Come along to the second Ignite Wellington and be inspired, amused, educated and amazed! We have an array of talented Wellington speakers, who will each speak for five minutes on topics that range from couchsurfing and Ernest Rutherford, to OutdoorKnit, wallpaper and building the dream!
At the heart of Ignite is its fast-paced format. All presenters must give their talks in just five minutes – using 20 slides that appear on screen for only 15 seconds.
The evening will start with an Ignite Contest, which will help participants unleash their inner creativity. The last event had teams building the tallest possible structures out of spaghetti and marshmallows
Ignite is happening on Tuesday August 3, at the Paramount Theatre from 6.30pm-10pm. Ignite is free, but you need to register in order to guarantee a seat. For more information, including the full list of speakers, check out their site. You can follow also them at @ignitewelli and become a Facebook fan
Eat and eat and eat: win a voucher for the General Practitioner
Congratulations to Nicole and her fantail for winning our Rata competition. This week, to celebrate Wellington on a Plate, thanks to the lovely Positively Wellington Tourism, we have a $100 voucher to the General Practitioner on the corner of Willis & Boulcott to give away.
The restaurant gets its name from the building’s original purposee – it was constructed for Dr. Henry Pollen in 1902, with his family living on the top floor and surgery on the bottom. Legend (or just hearsay?) has it that not too long after that moved in a troop of ladies to take care of other needs of the body besides medicine, before eventually it was refurbished as a posh restaurant we once took my grandmother to, but I can’t remember the name of it.
So, speaking of sticking things in buns, part of Wellington on a Plate is Burger Wellington, in which over 30 Wellington restaurants and cafes are creating special burgers and you get to vote for the winner. The General Practitioner’s contribution sounds especially good: