Eating outside my comfort box (heh)

Every­one knows that large cor­por­a­tions eat pup­pies, but what do the people who work for large cor­por­a­tions eat for lunch?

The Wel­ling­tonista is clos­ing down its Cour­tenay Place branch on Fri­day and is open­ing up in mid Lamb­ton Quay instead. After a year and a half down this way, we’d just finally got the good people at Saha­ra Kebabs to know that we like just a few onions and gar­lic yoghurt, tahini and hot chilli on our (mixed veget­ari­an, mujaver and falafel only) kebabs. Where are we going to eat now?

And we will party on, thanks to you

The front page story on the Domin­ion Post is Party on, says dying Il Casino Boss, and all media grumbles about the hor­rible exploit­at­ive nature of that stu­pid news­pa­per aside, the Wel­ling­tonista is really upset to hear that Remiro Bresolin has ter­min­al can­cer. Read­ers will surely know how dear to our hearts Il Casino, Scopa and Boulot are, so our thoughts and well wishes are with the fam­ily.

An Email Conversation About Restaurants

although, I probably won't be having the crabFel­low Wel­ling­tonis­tas, I am tak­ing my in-laws out for din­ner tonight. Any recom­mend­a­tions on a nice res­taur­ant that isn’t The White House, Logan Brown, Il Casino, Boulot or Chow? Quiet ambi­ence a def­in­ite plus.

I’m a big fan of Maria Pia’s. Excel­lent food; the ser­vice is ok to good (provided by the fam­ily, so that you know what to expect)… but maybe not hugely quiet.

In the same geo­graph­ic and gast­ro­nom­ic area as Maria Pia’s is Fran­cois. Nice, small and French. Try the snails.

If you’re after some­thing at the level of The White House, Logan Brown or Il Casino, then try Cit­ron or Mar­tin Bos­ley at the Yacht Club. Def­in­itely some of the most amaz­ing food in the city, and quiet too. Also, while I haven’t been to Bisque at the Bolton Hotel, I’ve heard con­sist­ently great things about it.

It’s not quite so quiet, but Zib­ibbo is always good. Adam Newell’s one of only two Mich­elin-starred chefs in NZ, and more import­antly, they do pizza! If the in-laws are par­tial to a bit of cow flesh, then I’ve heard that Crazy Horse is the place to go.

And I can heart­ily second the recom­mend­a­tion of Maria Pia’s, but it might be rather short notice.

thanks all – the Yacht Club gets the nod. Although good to have those oth­ers in reserve for future occa­sions…

Don’t you just love the Hive Mind?

Harem Scarum

Because she is obsessed with Elvis, and also maybe due to some exper­i­ences on tour buses that she alludes to but nev­er puts her pho­tos on flickr from, our intrep­id pub­lish­er decided to treat us all from the Wel­ling­tonista towers to lunch at Har­em to cel­eb­rate the launch of the new URL.

The Bacon Sarnie Experience

A good name for a band don’t you think? Right then, back to my lifelong obses­sion, the hunt for the Great Bacon Sarnie. I missed the food show. And I’m not scared of being cuddly. So I invite all our read­ers to tell us where the Best Bacon Sarnie can be had. In Wel­ling­ton prefer­ably, […]

Eat and eat and eat some more

At last those of us who are not sport­ingly inclined have a reas­on to vis­it the Cake Tin, and what a reas­on it is! The annu­al food show is upon us again, and I hope you’ve been train­ing. There really are few things that match drink­ing large amounts of tiny little cups of wine and […]

Are you game?

Next month, there will be an unusu­al col­lab­or­a­tion between urb­an gour­mets and huntin’ shoot­in’ fish­in’ types. The Fish & Game NZ Wild Game Bird Food Fest­iv­al, which runs from the 8th to the 28th of May, encour­ages hunters to bring their prey into par­ti­cip­at­ing res­tu­ar­ants where their catch can be trans­formed into gour­met dishes. The […]

Your last supper

Let Wel­ling­tonista point you towards the Last Sup­per Club’s bible-quot­ing yummy sound­ing menu that’s avail­able at their web­site. Yes­ter­day it was more elab­or­ate, while the res­taur­ant fea­tures a much more simple ver­sion. How­ever, today, the real menu is online. We all live hap­pily ever after. Here’s a hot tip for you – if you are […]

The Dockside Christmas Menu

This par­tic­u­lar Wel­ling­tonista was lucky enough to be invited to an asso­ci­ate’s Christ­mas lunch at the Dock­side. It’d been a while since we’d been there, and last time it was a wintry even­ing & we huddled some­where upstairs. Yes­ter­day how­ever, was as trop­ic­al as it comes & we were delighted to dis­cov­er that our table […]

Hataitai: All your food are belong to us

Have you ever wanted to just eat your way around a sub­urb? No? Well, we here at Wel­ling­tonista have, and we figured it would make sense to start with Hataitai. After all, who does­n’t love Hataitai? So here’s what you can get to eat: