Cook'n' with Gas, Christchurch - Reprise

Friday February 8

Since we had tickets to "Scared Scriptless," improv night at the Arts Centre, we couldn't resist going back to Cook'n' with Gas, which is right across the street from the theater. We were greeted by the restaurant cat, and ushered (not by the cat) to the very same table we had had the first time - I guess they class us as regulars now.

We wanted to have both meat and seafood, so our server advised us to go with a Charles Wiffen Reserve Pinot Noir 2005. New Zealand pinots have lots more body and less acid than the Californians; our Wino notes this particular one as being dusky, with notes of bing cherry, and more chocolate and leather flavors than usual.

Starters were seafood. Mussels were steamed with Cook's spruce beer and topped with gruyere and speck, on a mound of silverbeet (swiss chard to us) shredded and fried until it looked like seaweed, and in a creamy sauce with bright green parsley oil. Sort of a New Zealand version of oysters Rockefeller. Also Nelson bay scallops, with their tasty roes, piled (along with apple and lemon zest) on a smoked artichoke and brie tart composed very cleverly on a base of phyllo leaf with a top of arugula or other leafy green.

One main was Seafood at the Gas, a salmon fillet (unfortunately a trifle overbaked to our taste) topped with fluffy crabmeat and its own crisp skin, reposing on a bed of "wild and tame rice," plus a shrimp, spinach and cucumber salad with tarragon vinaigrette. And the other should have been called "Beef Three Ways": one was a beautifully rare grilled sliced fillet; two a mound of braised brisket with syrah glaze, caper berry, and smoked paprika oil; and three a corned beef and potato napoleon, and a side of little green lima beans and tomato that even Holt, ace lima-bean despiser, liked.

You've got to give the place credit for its creativity, excellent ingredients, and friendly atmosphere. Certainly one of our fave spots in all New Zealand.