Useful Arts! A Yayoi Kusama decorated building.
I love a good food tour and the idea of working off some calories while sampling food is enormously appealing to me. Of course walking for a few hours doesn’t necessarily negate a three course lunch, chocolate and coffee tasting and delicious home made cakes but every bit counts right Dear Readers? And if anything Wellington is a good city to be doing one in as the main city area is and compact. Mr NQN and I meet our Zest Food Tour Guide Stephanie, in the heart of Wellington and we join our other tour participants, two ladies from Auckland and New Yorkers Alexia from Frommer’s and her husband Tim who works in publishing. And get comfortable because it is a long story as it is a very comprehensive guide to Wellington! 
Mojo Coffee
We start with some architecture, the silver ball above us represents the five ferns that grow in New Zealand. Our first stop is to Mojo coffee, one of the most well known coffee makers in Wellington. Wellington is known for its cafe culture with nineteen coffee roasters in total.
Lambros the father of the owner Steve is busy at the coffee bean roaster. He shows us the beans being roasted until they reach a certain temperature. At 215-220C the beans are then cooled rapidly to avoid condensation and heating. The machine then sorts the beans from all the debris-in a typical bag there are rocks and nails as the coffee beans originate from areas where the factory floor may have other objects and debris. 93% of their coffee beans are organic and the owner Steve travels to various countries sourcing the coffee beans. They serve us a flat white which is their speciality.
Before the shipping containers arrive, they inspect the containers to see signs of anything suspicious or of issue and if there is, they alert customs. Once inspected, the pallets of bags of coffee beans are unloaded from the shipping container and is offloaded into a cordoned off yellow area. Quarantine then comes and inspects six bags at random and then it is brought into the warehouse.
Circa Theatre: moved!
On our way to the next stop Stephanie tells us that New Zealanders (and in particular Wellingtonians) like to move buildings. Yes entire buildings are relocated, even heritage buildings and we see several that have been moved from their previous locations. In fact one of the hotels, The Museum Hotel was called the “Hotel on Wheels” due to the number of times it had moved.
Ciocco Chocolates
We reach Ciocco chocolates where we’re in for a blind taste test! If you know me, you’ll know I love a blind taste test and there is a list of flavours up on the wall. The sales assistant tells us that most people guess one or two out of the five that they try. We each take a piece of paper numbered 1 -5 and a pen and we write down the flavours that we think that we are tasting.
Click here to read the full story
| June 25th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
Mr NQN and I were a touch tired and our feet sore from strolling around Wellington and seeing all that it had to offer so we were grateful when we realised that our place to dine that evening was metres a couple of hundred metres away from our hotel in Oriental Bay. It was the very high end Martin Bosley’s at the Yacht Club on the water which is known for innovative cuisine with an emphasis on seafood.
Apertif: “Tracer”
Boats bob up and down in the water outside. We start with a complimentary aperitif. The waitress named it after one of the yachts outside called “Tracer” that had come in while she was making it. It’s gin, creme de cassis and lime as well as other goodies. it’s absolutely delicious. We make a mental note to order aperitifs.
Amuse Bouche
Our amuse bouche is a seared prawn with a peanut sauce which is a cream sauce that is peanutty but not quite satayish due to the creaminess. The prawns are an ideal texture and it whets our appetite very nicely thankyou very much.
The trio of tartars $30
The trio of tartars is prettily plated with 3 cubes of raw fish tartars and the corresponding flavours working their way vertically down the plate. With the tarakihi there is a chilled crab bisque, saffron milk wafer and a red capsicum gelee. With the Queensland spanner crab there is wasabi sherbert and pork crackling and with the tuna there is trough clam, soubise (a bechamel sauce with strained onions) and Earl Grey tea powder (the item that persuaded me to order it). They all work wonderfully and even what could have been strong (wasabi sherbert) or strange (earl grey powder) it’s well balanced works well with the tartares and lifts it.
Diamond Shell clams 200grams $12
Click here to read the full story
| May 30th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
Our driver’s sign. Poor guy must have been so disappointed to see that he was picking me up and not the Nigella haha!
After our lovely stay at Otahuna Lodge our driver drove us to Christchurch airport where we boarded a plane to Wellington. Here streets have cute names like Bunny Street and houses are perched perilously high on the edge of cliffs and require cable cars to access them. The main shopping street is called Cuba Street which we will later visit.
We check into Ohtel, a boutique hotel with very cute and quirky touches. The room has a distinct Scandinavian/New Zealand feel to it with details such as a little notepad in a case with a small pen, a doorless bathroom (instead is a double layer curtain although this does mean that you have to be comfortable with your room mate bodily functions and can avoid walking into the glass at one end which we almost do several times), designer teas, thongs or flip flops for guests instead of slippers, vintage style furniture, nice organic toiletries and free wifi. It’s as if a designer boutique mated with a hotel. The lobby is like a cafe, in fact it is a cafe too and the whole hotel has 10 rooms in total.
The bathroom with the curtain door!
We’re picked up by David from Hutt Valley Tourism who is taking us to lunch at La Bella Italia, one of the Hutt Valley’s and Wellington’s most famous restaurants. The restaurant is located in Petone, a short drive from Wellington city centre. Petone literally means Belly Button as it’s about the centre point of New Zealand We drive past an artesian spring in the centre of town where a resident is filling up large bottles with the water that flows freely for everyone and is known as “Petone water”.
Antonio Cacace
We meet Antonio Cacace who is originally from Sorrento in Italy. His restaurant is set in a warehouse space as it also serves as a shop and deli. The son of a Michelin chef, he imports the food directly himself from Italy. He tells us of when his father was asked to change his tablecloths and flatware in order to appease the Michelin judges but he refused to do so.
He seats us at “Antonio’s table” in the corner of the store which affords us a bird’s eye view of the whole space. Aged only four when he first began serving at his father’s restaurant he had to carry the plates on top of his head as he couldn’t reach and over the next 20 years his father taught him the business. Interestingly, his grandfather had thoughts of opening up an Italian restaurant in Wellington many years ago so he feels that he is fulfilling his ancestor’s footsteps.
Click here to read the full story
| May 28th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
“It’s the details that count” I find myself saying to Mr NQN. We’re at our second destination on our New Zealand holiday and staying at the Otahuna Lodge, a 5 star luxury resort just 30 minutes out of Christchurch. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of New Zealand Lodges, grab a cup of tea or coffee and settle in. Lodges in New Zealand are heavenly places and this is a place I find myself nodding and clucking with approval at a lot. You see I could be called a pedant when it comes to hotels but a nicer way to describe me is as “detail oriented” and the thing I love the most about places is the little details (and it’s what I find distinguishes 4 star places from 5 star). When we pull up behind another car of visitors, each party of guests in this seven suite hotel is greeted by one of the owners. Co-owner Miles greets us with Jimmy the chef and our bags magically disappear to our room and we are taken on a short tour of the Queen Anne style building.
Formerly a house built in 1895 for Sir Heaton Rhodes it’s had a rich and varied history and among the numerous owners, it also served as a commune where six families lived until it was recently purchased by owners Miles Refo and Hall Cannon. Miles shows us the library where guests can enjoy their dinner (or you can dine in the sunken wine cellar or turret room).
Bedroom
Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major is playing on the Bose system when we walk into our room (the Verandah Suite) and I’m so delighted and smile (although I doubt the details went so far as to researching the music that I walked down the aisle to ). It’s huge, at 1000 square feet and there are two fireplaces, one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom.
Click here to read the full story
| April 30th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
After our rather adventurous day, we have dinner at Cafe de Paris, a restaurant that is said to serve classic French dishes. It has cooled down considerably and all I can think of is a nice warm soup and I’m hoping that if they do classics, that French Onion Soup will be on the menu. We rush in out of the cold and sit down and I’m relieved, there is French Onion Soup! Because it is the Wild Foods Weekend, there is a special menu that features some wild foods mixed among more regular dishes. Me, I’m just glad that I don’t have to face another Huhu Grub!
French Onion Soup $9.50
The food arrives quickly and the French Onion Soup is rich in wine and very warming and just what I needed. There is one piece of gruyere topped bread (admittedly I always hope for a bit more as that’s my favourite bit) and the serve is deceptively large.
Petite salad $6.50
The petite salad is a colourful mix of salad leaves, capsicum, carrot, red cabbage and snow pea shoots and is well dressed in an oil and vinegar dressing.
Beef Short Ribs
Click here to read the full story
| March 27th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella
What is NQN up to now? 
NQN on Facebook
RSS
