Island Life: Supertooth
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I miss English Chinese Food (which is different from Chinese Chinese food, which I think is what we get here).
The places in Soho where they'd order you to your table? I can't remember the food at all, but I don't recall being unhappy with it.
But what I really, really miss is poppadoms and chutneys before chicken dhansak at the Golden Curry in Clapham North. They used to send us Christmas cards, which was a jolly thoughtful thing for Muslims to do ...
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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.
true. it's about service because you actually like people.
too many cafes/restaurants in nzl are opened by people "retiring" from the rat race, or because it's "something they've always wanted to do".
my question is: if you hated working in a office, why would you like a profession where you have to deal with and be nice to office people every single day, or go under?
there's your recipe for crap service and bad attitude, right there...
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That would be Won Kees, I think.
I was thinking more of the local in my old village. Roast duck in black bean sauce and Szechuan King Prawns. Nomm nomm.
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Oh god, I so agree about the prices these middle of the road places charge. Bloody ludicrous that you go a good cafe for lunch and have great food, and you wouldn't pay much less at Valentines, and you'd pay the same or more at Lone Star or any other of those dreadful bloody places.
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Well I like Lone Star. The Newmarket one has been my after gym watering hole for a while - it's handy and has Steinlager on tape.
The food is what it is - once it dawns on you that "Lone Star Oven" is code for pre-deep fried and then deep fried when you order, it all makes sense. But I've found the steaks fine, the fish usually very good and the spare ribs what one wants from spare ribs.
It lacks finesse and it pays steer clear of anything that sounds a bit fancy but it's not bad value for money given that you generally don't have to buy sides.
The staff have been great - although often very young and a bit inexperienced but if they hang around they improve and the ones motivated to get into the industry get good support from the management.
I've been disappointed, and paid more money for the privilege, by a lot more sophisticated eateries. We just consider it all too expensive for what you get - outside of Asian food courts. In fact my partner and I don't eat out much since we've found it much more satisfying to cook at home and spend the money on good wine.
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We just consider it all too expensive for what you get - outside of Asian food courts. In fact my partner and I don't eat out much since we've found it much more satisfying to cook at home and spend the money on good wine.
might be the time to mention my new food series, "great meals for less than $7 per head"
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"great meals for less than $7 per head"
like the sound of that, even more money for the wine.
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this evening i made harissa lamb, for two, for $12.
and it was good.
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One of the nice things of working in a winery at vintage is that the interns/assistant winemakers/cellar hands take turns to cook lunch
$10 a head, two hours to eat and some first class wines from the library make a long day livable
Our American is a chef so we get some dam fine meals.. homemade gnocci and hocks today washed down with a better pinot noir than most people ever get to drink
Meanwhile I have been working my way through a sheep making traditional nz farming meals....something clever with quince tomorrow thoughRetirement is hell
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I agree,Palate is a wonderful place to eat at.I have also discovered another great eating hole in Hamiton,The Woodbox at Mystery Creek.Went there with a small crowd the other day.As for a lot of cafes and restaurants,the noise drives me out.
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Rich O
Versuvios was a Christchurch beacon of hope for a civilised society, with red wine, live jazz, and teppanyaki dining down the back.
The land lord decided to up the rent and the bar owner flipped his lid and gutted the place on the spot. At least it was quick & didn't suffer from rejection when it came to the end.Phoniness is fine - a little social lubricant for the sober staff to get on with the liquorish allsorts of punters who come their way.
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Gareth wrote early on:
That's a shame about Ciao ... And have heard that there's a new place called something like Wine and Roses (??) - about 8 tables, booked for months and doing genuinely good food (genuine being a little lost on many establishments in that area).
I was visiting my folks on the Shore a couple of weeks ago and we ate at Wine & Roses earlyish on a Saturday evening. I'm not sure if we had a booking - if so, it was made that day. I'd definitely go back - lovely food and pleasant service (friendly and helpful without being too friendly or too helpful). The decor's unusual - I rather liked the gothic feature wallpaper and black chandeliers though.
Re Ciao, David had mentioned:
Until just a few months ago, there was a brilliant restaurant directly facing Lone Star on Hauraki Corner. Ciao. An authentic Italian restaurant with great staff, fascinating food and an impressive cellar of Italian wine.
That was another one I'd visited with my parents, quite a while ago. At the time the staff behaved as though they'd rather we hadn't come in (I don't think we were dressed to the nines, but we wouldn't have been too poorly presented, and we're all very courteous types). Feeling rather uncomfortable, we ordered less than we wanted and never darkened their doors again. I guess we caught them on a bad day - perhaps if they find a new venue we'll give them another go.
Thinking about my Wellington favourites, most seem to be run/staffed by immigrants - e.g. Aubergine (a couple from Hong Kong), Le Métropolitain (French) and the late lamented Phnom Penh - but some aren't, like Eateria de Manon in Newtown. I think what they have in common (apart from fabulous food, mostly French-themed - I find it hard to resist) is staff who know what they're doing and are consistently pleasant and helpful. Some of them are also good fun :)
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So it looks like you all have horror stories for service at NZ restaurants, but I'll say this, London is far worse and they now expect a tip for your troubles. Nothing worse than paying astronomical prices for average food then having to add 12.5%.
It isn't all bad though, I was at a Japanese restaurant in Soho the other night which had a noticeboard that had a delightful flyer advertising something called "Movement of the Rising Sun", which looks to restore the "Imperial Japanese Empire" and is currently looking for "European Supporters". I have the phone number if anyone is interested.
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there's a little-known korean cheap and cheerful on manners street that serves MOUNTAINS of chilli pork for $10. i kept thinking, sooner or later we're going to hit the noodles supporting all this meat. nope, pork all the way to the sizzling hot-plate.
Do tell - this sounds fantastic. Got an address?
then there's "porno noodles" upstairs in the oaks centre.
Do you mean the one by pigeon park? If you do, that takes me back, young fella. In 1983, the restaurant upstairs there was one of the smarter places in town.
"Jumbos" wasn't it? They had a big fibreglass elephant out the front - very classy.
At the time The Oaks opened, it was regarded as being an excellent piece of architectural design. Even David Kernohan liked it (__Wellington's New Buildings__, VUW Press, 1989). I recently uncovered a set of photographs I had taken of its interior for a first-year university assignment back in 1986. It did look very sophisticated with its clean white lines and masses of potted vines and ferns in the central atrium tumbling down from the upper level. Now the place is a falling-apart rusting hulk that looks like it could do with a bulldozer through it. -
it's called seoul house, opposite that furniture showroom on the corner of victoria and manners.
and,
Now the place is a falling-apart rusting hulk that looks like it could do with a bulldozer through it.
amen.
when sol bar was up there it was actually worth setting foot in. but my straight mind says that these days porno noodles is all the place has going for it.
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Don't think I've been there since it was the Royal Oak Hotel. Its now rusty building is still "the new place" to me.
I worked at a publishing house nearby and we used the respectable upstairs lounge bar of the Royal Oak and restaurant when entertaining clients, whereas when in the mood to let off steam our staff relaxed downstairs in the notorious old Bistro Bar, among the tatts and the tarts and the trannies.
As much as you can relax in bars you adhere to.
Another one we used a lot in those days was the Clarendon on the corner of Taranaki Street - now Molly Malone's. That was a tatty old dump in the 1960s and 1970s, before its first makeover. Did good steak sandwiches though.
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"bars you adhere to"
I had to read that three times before I parsed it correctly.
Ewwww.
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bars you adhere to
My very first Wellington drink was in the public bar of the Barretts Hotel. My jandals stayed put at the first two strides, as I kept walking.
The one I worked in kept much better carpets.
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My first drink in Wellington was at the old Thistle - back before it was gentrified. It used to have quite a strange ambience back then - blue collar types in thigh gumboots intermixed with civil servants
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David, it was such a pleasure to go back and re-read that fabulous March 2004 post, and the equally good January 2004 post it linked to.
Any other gems you'd care to point us to?
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That's kind of you to say, Deborah. If you haven't read the very first post in the archive, I'll be revisiting that in a couple of weeks for anniversary reasons.
Elsewhere, and in more of a Hand Mirror mood, have you read this tour de force in the Age?
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Elsewhere, and in more of a Hand Mirror mood, have you read this tour de force in the Age?
No, I hadn't read it. The analysis is spot on. I've posted it at THM - thank you.
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Elsewhere, and in more of a Hand Mirror mood, have you read this tour de force in the Age?
It's interesting that the short-lived NZ version of The Foot Show tried that sort of crap and deservedly went down in flames. In Australia, it just keeps on rating.
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Yeah.... I tried to think of an NZ equivalent to Sam Newman, and I couldn't. Not even Marc Ellis comes close. Larrikan and juvenile yes, but never so crassly misogynist. And I think if he did go that far, viewers would just turn it off.
It's one of the big differences I notice between t'old country and the new.
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A couple of years ago I shared the canteen in Channel Nine Melbourne with the Footy Show creeps. It was memorable.
No better off-screen than on. Attention-seeking, puerile and anti-social in the widest sense. They're the blokes that gave bogans a bad name.
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