Retour, Christchurch

Sunday February 10

We had tried to eat at Retour, a picturesque rotunda right on the Avon river, during the conference. But there was a mixup: when we first phoned, they said they had no tables, then they said they had one, but when we arrived, that turned out to be wrong. We went across the street to Indochine, so we didn't suffer. But Holt loves follies, and eating in such a lovely copper-domed one was not to be missed. When we returned to Christchurch, he e-mailed their reservations site, and later we dropped in (the restaurant is midway between our motel and the city center) and affirmed that Sunday would finally be the big day.

It was worth waiting for. We were greeted like long-lost relatives, and led to a table looking right out on the river. It's a small place, but the windows on every side and cheerful striped awnings give it an expansive feel.

Pinot Noir again covered all the red meat/seafood bases: this one was Main Divide 05, and it went very nicely with our amuse-gueules of grilled brill (new fish!) on fresh tomato coulis with lemongrass, but also with our very varied starters. One was prawn and crayfish ravioli (made with shu mai wrappers, so really Asian despite the Italian name) in a soy-infused beurre blanc over bok choy; the other was a "pied de cochon" - actually a confit of slow-cooked and pulled wild boar wrapped in caul fat to resemble the porcine limb - with mushrooms and a julienned Waldorf salad with bacon.

The red meat mains seemed most attractive, so we had the venison: partly slices of medium rare roast loin, partly a venison timbale, with grilled potatoes, great cloves of roasted new garlic, in a red wine jus. That was good, but even better was the pair of grilled beef medallions in a miso glaze, topped with kikorangi blue cheese, accompanied by crisp vegetables, mushrooms, and perfectly-turned chateau potatoes.

When we finished and were lingering over our wine, our server said that, to make up for all the confusion over our reservations, dessert would be on the house. As all our faithful readers (both of you) know, we don't often have room for dessert, but in this case we were prepared to make room. So we had a beautiful slice of lemon meringue tart, sprinkled with berries (straw, blue, and perhaps red currant) with a scoop of toffee ice cream (hokey-pokey in this country). We could make some joke here about returning to Retour, but we won't. We're glad we did, though.