Christchurch is filled with hikers, hippies (old and new), and street artists. They all eat at Dux de Lux. This was lunch, but exceptions must be made on vacation. A rollicking kind of place. Order at the bar, food in the courtyard. Eating outside in the sun in January. We laugh and say "Ha, ha!" We may not be able to attain our goal of having something we've never heard of before everyday, but we did have a lovely fish called, if I'm reading the nice waitress's handwriting correct, tarakihi.
Thick, white, meaty (that's the fish). In a lime mayo coated with bread crumbs and baked. Lots of little salads, particularly fine example of the potato variety. Topped off with a very tasty Hereford ale (local brew, with pacific hops).Our dinner, I'm afraid, was only OK. Palazzo di Marinaio was touted by the same local magazine that had liked Hay's, but the P. di M. turned out to be the sort of old-fashioned Italian joint that might have been in any Midwest American town (Cincinnati, for example).
So a nice enough NZ bubbly, Deutz, to start with. The highlight was the opener: a dozen Pacific oysters, deep shells. A slightly musky taste, more complex than the usual shot-of-brine of their Atlantic cousins.
Then we had a frutti di mare, which turned out to more a sea-food platter with giant prawns and scallops (ho-hum) and our new Fish of the Day, the Gurnard: an imposingly ugly little bastard, triangular in cross-section, prehistoric in appearance, and pleasant in taste. It seems to be the fish of choice for fush 'n' chups.
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