Cook 'n' with Gas

Monday 28 January
Despite the name (Capt. Cook, get it?), a brilliant restaurant, with one of the more pleasant and sophisticated meals we've had in some time.
The starters were
Rabbit consommé: a rabbit loin, boned out, lined with kale (?) leaves, and filled with a tomato-rich force meat. Two slices of this at the bottom of a beautiful soup bowl with a burgundy and gold leaf pattern, scattered with thin slivers of red pepper, tomatoes, and sun-dried tomatoes (sensing a theme here?). Over this the waiter poured a perfect consommé (which the Dept. of Redundancy Dept. always serves all the time). Concentrated flavors, salty, but not overwhelming. The broth released the pop of tomato in the little rabbit rolls. Bold and delicate at once.
The other was a smoked venison salad, over a butternut (lettuce, not squash) and pickled walnut salad, also jam-packed with flavors that all seemed as if they would compete for attention and all of which worked harmoniously together.
The mains were a Canterbury duck (a famed local product), with green olives. We looked for the olives, expecting them to be tossed about, but instead they were nestled in a little packet of green leaves, along with a nugget of confit duck leg. All over an amazing turmeric spice cauliflower coucous (they had crumbled the outer bits of cauliflower, which look like couscous anyways, and cooked them all together). Plus a dab of pureed kumara (the Maori sweet potato).
The lamb (of course) was three perfect chops, their ribs leaning against a column of mashed potatoes topped with a goaty goat cheese (which they called a galette for some reason), with three other noisettes of lamb in between, glazed with tamarind. Nice thymy mushrooms and a minted pea salad.
A Whitehaven chardonnay (Waipara, the local region) refreshed us all.