Book yourself into the book fair this weekend
Normally around this time our lovely Sue would be getting all rapturous about the Downtown Community Ministry‘s Annual Book Fair, but since she’s rather busy, let me just tell you that the fair is happening again this weekend (August 21 & 22) at the TSB Arena, with doors will open from 9am to 4pm each day.
If you like books, you should go along, because prices start at $2. Not enough of a spiel for you? Well what Sue said last year should do!
Spaced Out
The Film Archive Traveling Film Show is back in Wellington this week with a brilliant selection of space films sourced from their extensive collection.
This should be a doosey (doozey? have just realised I don’t know how to spell that) with early fantasy films from the late 1890s by French film maker and magician George Méliès. Plus footage from 1965 of Russian astronaut Alexei Leonov conducting the world’s first spacewalk!
Review: The December Brother
The December Brother is the newest production from the SEEyD Theatre Company. It comprises of three mini plays, all linked with the common form of family and the search for truth.
Getting burgered at WOAP: The Greenman
As my first taste of Burger Wellington, I decided to check out The Greenman because I had errands in the area, and their offering sounded quite delicious:
Whiskey and Maple Lamb Burger
Local lamb patty with lettuce, tomato and pineapple salsa on a shawarma bun, served with fries
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?