A bouquet for Nikau

Heading off to meet a friend for lunch, I walked through Aro Park where, I discovered, they were having some sort of second-hand/local produce fair. Local produce in the inner city? Well, yes. Laila was selling her home made lemon curd & giving away sourdough starters + a recipe. I admire such generosity of spirit, & …

You couldn’t fake it

In Bangkok, wondering where to eat. A Google search found Thai Tatler's restaurant reviews, preferred location & favoured cuisine narrowed the field to a few options. And, in the end, we chose Harmonique. And that turned out to be a very good choice. My sort of restaurant in many ways. Not undiscovered by farang, indeed almost entirely a farang …

Karori sanctuary aka Zealandia

"She wants to take us to lunch," he said. "Let's go to the sanctuary." The Karori Sanctuary, that is. Renamed Zealandia. And so we went. The selection of counter food looked old, tired, yesterday's. I chose a BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato ... as I'm sure you know) in toasted Turkish bread off the menu. …

Le Canard

A birthday treat, a restaurant specialising in duck. It began on a high note, and swooped downwards. The entrée was very, very good … though perhaps would have been even better if served at room rather than fridge temperature. The main … well, with neither salt nor pepper on the table the message from the …

Osteria del Toro

One of the ‘in’ places to eat in Wellington at the moment seems to be Osteria del Toro, in Tory Street. Had walked past it many times, but it’s position on the ground floor of a backpackers’ had made me assume it would be a bit of a dive. So I was unprepared when I …

Caffe Italiano (again)

Mother-in-law to stay, so a change to our evening routine. Earlier meals, desserts … and more traditional fare. Meat loaf, rhubarb crumble. Nothing wrong with those of course. But one night out to Caffe Italiano in Cuba Street. Where they had a very good, but rather loud, trio of musicians to entertain the diners. Fine …

Tinakori Bistro

The opportunity to eat at perhaps my favourite Wellington restaurant, Tinakori Bistro, the other night. The menu changes little, but the food’s always great. It was a cold night so the seafood chowder with smoked salmon a perfect beginning, the saltiness of the smoked salmon perfectly offsetting the creaminess of the soup. Then the venison, …

La Casa Pasta

There was a fairly harsh review of La Casa Pasta, in Dixon Street, in the paper recently. It was accurate enough, no doubt, but wasn’t it missing the point about the restaurant?  We eat there occasionally, for something quick & inexpensive on the way to somewhere else. Like, the other night, grabbing a meal in …

Escape to New Plymouth

Taranaki’s always seemed a bit off the map to me, but snippets of information popping up on the news over recent years have piqued my interest … and the weekend just past I finally got there. It was generally sunny in New Plymouth, a blessing after too much rain of late, and I was impressed …

Logan Brown

Chocolate. I don’t say enough about chocolate, so … A delicious chocolate dessert at lunch yesterday at Logan Brown, the restaurant in the neo-classical banking chamber of a former bank on Cuba Street, the lunch a treat after several days of packing up the house in preparation for the laying of new carpet, and, indeed, …