Curator's House and Sticky Fingers

27 January 2008

A trip to the Canterbury Museum and stroll in the stunningly beautiful Botanical Gardens ended up at the very pleasant Curator's House. We sat outside looking out to the grand trees and nibbled on tapas: a fine feast of slightly spicy tentacles, then garlic prawns. These were vasty denizens of the vasty deep swimming (as it were) in olive oil flavored with tomato and handfuls of coarsely chopped garlic so nutty in taste and texture that at first we mistook them for pignoli. Finally, smoked salmon, thin, tender, with cucumbers, and a piece of pantomate (the Spanish form of bruschetta) that was used to sop up as much of the prawn oil as possible. All washed down with a glass of Wild South sauvignon blanc. A beautiful and pastoral meal. (We're going back for dinner.)

That night was the opening reception for the classics convention that we came to New Zealand to attend (!). The kiwi way, we were told, is drinks first (bubbly and more nice whites), nor were our hosts stingy therewith. An hour later some nice mid-east munchies circulated (phyllo cigars and the like) but not enough to absorb all that wine, so we headed out for a quick bite afterwards at Sticky Fingers: a comfy booth, and a Aquarian pizza—lots of prawns and fishy bits, on a good, crisp (but not too crisp) dough. Just the right size to fill in the gaps. We traded sips of Trinity Hills Chard and Chard Farms Chard (not a stutter).