Island Life: Supertooth
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There is a Texas Lone Star in Wellington. And it sucks.
There are two Lone Stars in Chch, and they suck too. The one at Church Corner replaced a Cobb and Co, which was... well, it was cheaper, catered to the kids, and wasn't full of people who'd spent an hour at the bar before going in to eat.
And what is it with making eateries both dark and loud? I'm probably going old-fogey-y, but I do like to be able to hear my dinner companions.
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I'm still vexing over that $30 steak
$31, to be precise.
Would sir care to see the menu?
Emma, isn't one of those Christchurch ones ground zero for the outbreak?
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Yeh and having spent a lot of time bashing Hamilton, or well merely making snide comments...the Gardens are reallly nice, and having been to a few of the arts festivally things there- they were reasonably priced, inclusive- including I remember a great wee production of an Italian renaissance play by fresh Unitec grads performed in an outdoor amphitheatre...
This is our of date by a few years now...but
If you compare that to some of the dross such as the production of A Clockwork Orange which included in its final monologue an attempt to get us to buy a book in the foyeur..
anyway...not saying its all that way. but another one for the Hamiltron. Oh and they've got test cricket.
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Hey don't Ken's Yakitori do something similar with the camembert?
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Emma, isn't one of those Christchurch ones ground zero for the outbreak?
Indeed. Now you know where we tip the cows.
And holy crap, $28 for a chicken salad? Go to Hays, the food is good.
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What's with trashing the Lone Star?
At least it has flavour.
As for price, keep an eye on the court pages - many of those cheap places end up with underpaid staff of variable immigration status & the odd conviction for black market seafood etc.
IMHO Itallian has to be the most boring food after English. As for dark eateries have you tried the Bicycle Thief in Christchurch? They should give you a white cane on entry. -
What's with trashing the Lone Star?
At least it has flavour.Well, David's utterly woeful experience might have been a little less out-of-order if the food had been cheap and cheerful.
But for less money I can order a fine steak at Prego from some of the best hospo workers in the country.
That's the issue.
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As for dark eateries have you tried the Bicycle Thief in Christchurch? They should give you a white cane on entry.
Indeed. And Winniebago's and the Honeypot are nearly as bad. They're all low light, board floors and hard surfaces so sound bounces round like crazy. Is this just a Chch thing?
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But for less money I can order a fine steak at Prego from some of the best hospo workers in the country.
or, so to simply paris on cuba street.
i love that place. the cassoulet was only $24 and they had to use a crow-bar to wedge me out of the dodgy outdoor furniture i was so full.
they had a japanese guitarist singing in french and the waiters would occasionally dance together, old school.
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I rather like that the Bicycle Thief is dark - I hate having people stare at me and whomever I'm with while I eat.
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Well Lone Star is casual, that's their brand and they don't book in, which David was made aware of, it has been their procedure for a mere 20yrs.
Lamenting things passed can I just say, I miss Vesuvios.
As for Red brick, it is nice to look at but the acoustics have me either walking outside to talk or cupping my ear to hear.
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Oh God I miss Vesuvio's - the cigar smoke, the Tony de Lautour paintings, a shot of absinthe...
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Floriditas
I want to come home.
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David, it might be some consolation that the people who own the brilliant Richmond Road Cafe are soon to open a new place at the north end of Takapuna Beach.
Yep this is the Takapuna Beach Cafe I mentioned - it's open now, soft launched last week with takeaways but believe it's now in full flight...
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You all in Auckland may be interested in my friend's blog - he's reviewing some of the finest lunches to be had for not much cash here.
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this is not a reflection on NZ service culture .... it is the result of the unintelligent transplanting of lean production techniques.
i dunno aeh... culture is a way of being, not just of doing. even in nzl-owned places here in wellington you get the same "she'll be right" attitude to service and complaints. it's lazy, haphazard, and undermines the entire industry.
I think it's a combination of the "she'll be right" attitude and what David Slack said about over-familiarity.
I tried to order a steak well done at VBG I was told point blank to "No" and told to "order something else because our chef doesn't like preparing meat well-done".
I'd eaten at VBG dozens of times before and been given my meal as I ordered it but none of us who were there that night ever went back. There are lots of other places you can spend your money and not be lectured by the staff. My NZer companions kept apologising to me about how crappy the service is in NZ restaurants.
I've done one too many dissections to enjoy eating flesh rare - and as I enjoy distance running (which chews up red blood cells), I have to eat red meat. I like it really well done and don't want to argue with the staff, I want to talk to my friends over dinner.
I come from a long like meat eaters who battle vegetarianism all their lives... as children we would happily eat vegetables, but meat was a struggle. This goes back to my Dad's generation (and probably before) and has recently been observed in my cousn's son Theoren, who, when presented with a piece of beef when he was three years old asked "what was it before it died?" and on being told it was a cow, asked "was it scared when it died?" This kid's 10 now, and will still eat brocolli with more enthusiasm than meat. But he absolutely loves brocolli and is not that big on any kind of meat.
One of the things lacking NZ restaurants is vegetables on the dinner plate. If you're lucky they will have them on the menu, to be ordered as a side dish, but they are invariably overdone and swimming in butter or something greasy and salty.
I kind of miss the regional Schechwan, Canton chinese food that use vegetables unknown here. And good Italian food, with pasta and bread made on the premises, using the type of tomatoes and herbs and cheese that are specific to the regional dishes.
But the service is sometimes pretty irritating, once at a restaurant (years ago, it wouldn't be fair to name them now) where the waiter actually commented on my sister-in-law's weight when she ordered her dessert.
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I kind of miss the regional Schechwan, Canton chinese food that use vegetables unknown here.
You might be surprised at what you can get in downtown Auckland. I know Mr Brown was.
And good Italian food, with pasta and bread made on the premises, using the type of tomatoes and herbs and cheese that are specific to the regional dishes.
Delicious makes pasta and bread on the premises. And you might even get the legendary Basil Fawlty floor show from the proprietor ...
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Vesuvio's is still there - at least the one in San Fran was when I last looked. Did NZ have one as well?
I miss English Chinese Food (which is different from Chinese Chinese food, which I think is what we get here).
I don't mind the cafe style familiarity thing. Like getting up at the end of the meal to pay (EFTPOS requires that you either have that, or an expensive and lose-able wireless machine. In Switzerland that causes a culture clash issue, since people *expect* to pay at the table). I think it's when a place creates an expectation of class service (as opposed to nice food) that problems occur. Or if they have some wierd foreign imported kaupapa.
BTW, Wagamama has a *good* foreign imported kaupapa, and is coming to Wellington RSN.
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What's with trashing the Lone Star?
Because it's shite?
At least it has flavour.
Generic overly sweet BBQ sauce flavour, IIRC.
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I tried to order a steak well done
chefs call that a "saturday night special". it's also "officially a food crime".
but... putting my snobbery aside, you can avoid that particular drama by asking for a medium steak, and requesting that the chef rest it properly before serving.
that way you get to look discerning, and have your steak sans-blood.
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they had a japanese guitarist singing in french and the waiters would occasionally dance together, old school.
Dancing waiters? I'll happily pay an extra $5 for my main to see that. In the small amount of travelling that I've done around the world, it doesn't feel like NZ has enough of restaurants cafes where people have exported their whole culture to a new country and served it up inside a room with food. I like the owner coming out and convincing me that I really should try this, and here's a nice wine which would go with that, and a conversation with the staff which feels genuine rather than hammered into them with a smile.
I was in Rarotonga last week, and the whole family went out to an 'Island Cultural Night' which was very good. The food was pretty westernised however. My son went home complaining that he didn't get to taste coconut or its juice during the night, so we broke open a coconut from the beachfront the next day for him. Fantastic dancing however.
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I don't mind the cafe style familiarity thing.
You might feel different if you wre in my sister-in-law's shoes, and being lectured by a waiter half her age about how "fattening" her dessert was. I though she was going to get up and kill the little guy.
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Well, but that's not common-or-garden 'familiarity'. That's just being a rude jerk.
(It's so hard to find good help these days, isn't it?)
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My objection is the phoniness. Familiarity is fine with me if they're genuinely engaging with you. It's the kind of crap you see in the Office Space clip at the bottom of the post that I can live without.
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You all in Auckland may be interested in my friend's blog - he's reviewing some of the finest lunches to be had for not much cash here.
Good blog! I haz his RSS ...
Although the statement that "Sichuan is, in topical fashion, the Chinese province that borders Tibet" is precariously political ...
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