now we’re cooking with fire

Leaf­ing through the Wel­ling­ton on a Plate cata­log some months ago, one event in par­tic­u­lar seemed to stand out for me. This was Cook­ing Over Fire, The Argen­tine Way, to be held at El Mata­dor, the new “Café, Asad­or Grill & Bar” up Cuba Street. Asad­or is the Argen­tine nation­al dish, a way of slow-cook­ing […]

Beer what you want to beer

It’s Choice Beer Week here in Wel­ling­ton and last night The Sut­ton Group Brew­ers Guild of New Zea­l­and Awards took place at the Michael Fowl­er Centre. Har­ring­ton’s Brew­er­ies of Christ­ch­urch took out the top hon­ours and were named Cham­pi­on Brew­ery in New Zea­l­and for 2012. Wel­ling­ton, being the self-claimed and now gen­er­ally accep­ted Craft Beer […]

More WOAP: the bland, the sublime and the curious

As I said before, I’m work­ing my way around the lunch­time Dine menus of places near my work. Here’s what I’ve got to report. 1. Vivant 2. Little Beer Quarter 3. Ti Kouka Cafe 4. Finc

Benefit Concert for The Court Theatre at Circa

Next Monday (20 August) a group of Wel­ling­ton per­formers will be get­ting togeth­er to raise funds for The Court Theatre in Christ­ch­urch. Badly affected by the earth­quakes (forced to aban­don thirty-five years of sets, cos­tumes, and scripts) The Court Theatre has opened again in a new ven­ue affec­tion­ately called ‘the Shed’. They have a space […]

Wellington on a Plate so far

Wel­ling­ton on a Plate opened on Fri­day. How’s it been for you so far? We’ve been try­ing to share people’s microreviews on Twit­ter, and of course @wellyonaplate will be even more inform­at­ive,  but I thought I’d do some prop­er writeups for you about what I’ve been eat­ing. So, in chro­no­lo­gic­al order: Dine menu at The […]

Review: West End Girls

The first job artist Bar­bara Tate had in Soho was in a bar.  Soon she was charmed into work­ing as a maid for Mae,  a ‘glam­or­ous West End Girl ‘. Ken Duncum has adap­ted Tate’s mem­oir about her time work­ing for a pros­ti­tute in Soho. It’s fun and fizzy in the first half before things […]

Brancott all dressed up and ready to WOW you

We’ve really enjoyed going to  the Bran­cott Estate World of Wear­ableArt Awards Show over the past couple of years, back from when the nam­ing rights spon­sor had a dif­fer­ent name. We’ve also really enjoyed wine over the past twenty years or so as well. Nat­ur­ally, some­thing that mixes the two is going to make us happy.  Bran­cott […]

A lion (and others) in winter

Right now the magno­li­as are in bloom along Roy Street in New­town, and it’s gor­geous. But of course, it’s around this time last year that it snowed, so don’t be fooled – it’s still winter. The good news though, means that Wel­ling­ton Zoo has entry for only $5 on Wed­nes­days through­out all of August. Nat­ur­ally […]

the Friendly Cyclist

Some­times you see them: dig­ni­fied, ter­ribly cool, impec­cably dressed, and upright, mak­ing their way through the rush hour traffic on their old-fash­ioned bikes in a man­ner poles oppos­ite to the more com­mon fluoro speed­sters. A beacon of bicyc­ling style, and also: fairly damned hot. Yes, you think, now that’s cer­tainly one mode of com­muter cyc­ling […]

It’s all in the game.

Avert your eyes if you are veget­ari­an, have an aver­sion to meat products, or if you’ve had a pet bird and now chick­en is not a menu option. What fol­lows is a dis­cus­sion of a delect­able degust­a­tion din­ner con­sist­ing of game birds. Unless you belong to one of the three groups above how can you […]