Dinner with the Chefs, Wellington

Monday 18 February

Our friend Judy kindly drove us all around Wellington today, and there is a lot to go around - and up, and down, and up again. Perhaps the most beautiful scene was the rocky coastline where the ferry Wahine sank (and you can see why); the most surreal was the top of Mount Victoria, where we encountered busfuls of Victoria University students on their first orientation tour, accompanied by tour leaders dressed as Disney characters.

Judy also arranged something that we've never done before: her son Frank is a chef at a well-known Wellington restaurant, Maria Pia's Trattoria, and he (accompanied by his wife Jane and fellow-chef Stephen) would be preparing dinner for all of us at his own apartment that evening. We were a bit overawed by the concept of dining with chefs, but we were received and welcomed in so homey a fashion that we soon relaxed.

Both Frank and Stephen specialize, of course, in Italian food, so the dinner was in typical Italian style. The pasta course was spaghettoni alla frutti di mare è alla panna, made with a special pasta from Lecce, Benedettono Cavallieri; the clams, mussels, prawns, and other seafood swam in a rich saffron and cream sauce, and we avidly spooned up each drop from the bottom of our bowls.

Wines for this course were both 2002 Sauvignon Blancs: Hunter's and Glover's (also both genitives).

The meat course was a grand roast leg of lamb studded with garlic and rosemary, accompanied in more English style by potatoes, parsnips, and (NZ) kumara roasted in (free-range, organic) duck fat. It was accompanied by an Ata Rangi Martinborough Celebre 2002, which went with it beautifully.

Then came salad: home-grown (by Jane, on the apartment terrace) organic (but not free-range) cherry tomatoes with Italian bufala mozzarella, dressed with Capoleuca olive oil and 25-year-aged balsamic vinegar.

And finally, dessert: an AMAZING tiramisu (made with four eggs, and resulting in a long debate between Frank and Stephen as to whether four eggs was too many, or just enough - we think just enough) and a refreshing peach and kiwi berry (new fruit!) compote. The accompaniments at the end were Burnt Spur Martinborough Riesling and/or Toscana Gini grappa.

This was an evening we always want to remember. Thanks so much to Frank, Jane, Judy and Stephen, for making it possible - and delicious.

Curry Club, Wellington

Tuesday 19 February

Barbara was due to lecture on her excavations at Caesarea for the Wellington Classical Association, and the Classics Department of Victoria University of Wellington (Te Whare Wananga o te Upoko o te Ika Maui) gathered at the Curry Club, a downtown restaurant, to give her and Holt (who had given a seminar for the department that morning) a festive dinner.

This had never occurred to us before, but an Indian (or Chinese) restaurant is the perfect place to give a large pre-lecture dinner. You can order huge plates of varied meat and vegetarian appetizers (which was done), hot breads (ditto), and rice, and then give everybody a chance to order a different dish as well - the dishes get passed around, and everyone has a taste, or manages to avoid whatever they don't like. I know we ordered two beefs, two chickens, a fish, and a lamb, and all tasted great. Only problem is, Indian dishes are almost always in deep sauce, and some of the sauces looked so much alike that we soon couldn't tell what was what.

The other advantage is that people can depart early to get set up at the lecture hall, and the rest can finish the leftover dishes at leisure. In fact, the only problem was that Barbara couldn't have much wine before her lecture, and the wines people brought - a 1994! Dry River "Amaranth" and a 2000 Ata Rangi, both Pinot Noirs from Martinborough - were magnificent. Those Wellington classicists have excellent taste.

The White House, Wellington

The White House, Wellington
Sunday 17 February

We left Kaikoura on the Tranzcoastal Train, which goes through stunning (as usual) scenery, including the Marlborough Wine Region (oh, to get off the train and linger longer), and with some nervousness boarded the ferry to the North Island. The first time we crossed the Cook Strait, in 2002, we experienced our first and only episode of seasickness. But today the Strait was as calm as it gets, and we had a pleasant journey and bask in the sun on the upper deck.

Our friend and colleague Judy met us at the ferry, carried us and our ponderous baggage to the hotel, and gave us tips on where to eat in Wellington. Her first suggestion was the White House, and we managed to call and get an immediate reservation. Then an easy stroll along the harborside (past Te Papa Museum, through another clever kiddy park, and with views of lots of ships, kayakers, helicopters, and clever public sculptures) brought us to Oriental Parade and the White House.

The restaurant is on an upper floor, with an excellent view over the harbor. It's a nouvelle, white-tablecloth, attentive-service kind of place, which happened that night to be filled with Americans. After a quick glance at the menu, we saw that once again we would be having both red meat and fish, so again a Pinot Noir; but to celebrate our arrival on the North Island, we had a Martinborough wine, 3 Paddles from Nga [w. macron] Waka vineyards. And our attentive server brought us a fabulous amuse-bouche to go with it, a Tarakihi ceviche with tomato, coriander, and red onion.

Holt couldn't resist a new oyster, so we ordered a dozen Clevedons. They are small and musky, and, surprisingly for this place, had some bits of sand and shell still in them. Nothing wrong with the sweetbreads and mushrooms, though, served with a luscious buttery brown sauce.

Then a very clever palate-clearer: shot-glasses of mojito jelly topped with citrus foam. Effective, elegant, and I bet we could do it at home.

Our main choices were beef and lamb (what else?). The lamb was a loin crusted with harissa, served on crushed fresh peas with its own jus, mint syrup, and a fresh tomato coulis, all very flavorful. The beef was a mignonette wrapped in bacon and topped with a spoonful of truffled sauce soubise (onions); it sat in the middle of an oxtail jus, and was accompanied by cute little manicotti stuffed with oxtail too.

We walked back along the harbor, replete.

The Pier, Kaikoura

Saturday 16 February

Today was not so magical. The weather gods of the Land of the Long White Cloud had been kind to us so far, but today they just decided to relax and let it rain and be lousy. Our whale-watching trip was cancelled. We got quite wet walking two kilometers into the charmless town, and once there, had our first truly bad meal in this country - at the Craypot. We should have been warned when the sullen waitstaff wouldn't make eye-contact, or when they told us that their advertised "awesome seafood chowder" contained kamaboko, that pressed crab substitute. (We now recognize that this sort of puffery is one of the telltale signs of severe restaurant malfunction.) Nonetheless, we unwarily ordered and ate mussel chowder whose main ingredient was apparently mucilage, and continued to taste it for the rest of the day.

Still, we can be happy in most situations. We went to the bright-pink local theater, the "Mayfair," and saw "The Golden Compass." We had a glass of wine and dried off in the hotel room while Holt finished Orlando Furioso. And we went out to dinner to the Pier in the evening.

This was another trustworthy Lonely Planet recommendation (in fact, as we dined, several people walked into the restaurant carrying the guidebook). The place is an old hotel, subtly renovated and painted. When you walk in, you notice that all the chairs are placed at one side of their tables, and that tables on one wall are built up against the window, with taller chairs to accommodate them. That's because that side of the restaurant looks out at a fabulous view of the bay and the mountains beyond.

The wine was a Matahiwi Pinot Noir - we needed a red on such a cold night, though we'll take any excuse for drinking New Zealand pinots. Our starters were simple steamed mussels with garlic and thyme, and crispy-skinned salmon with Nelson bay scallops (always with roe; why are American scallops never served with their roe?) topped with red bell pepper and fennel piperade. Took the taste of mucilage right out of our mouths.

The mains were ribeye steak with baked shallot, potatoes, and greenbeans in beef jus; and char-broiled rare venison with plum sauce, along with arugula and beets sprinkled with feta. Simple and well-prepared, with crisp vegetables, none of which was billed as "fabulous" or "awesome." And our server smiled, looked us in the eye, and actually got things we asked for (he got tipped, natch). The Pier is obviously a good, dependable, and especially functional restaurant.

Kaikoura Seafood BBQ

Kaikoura Seafood BBQ
Tuesday February 15

(before picture)

By the time we arrived at Kaikoura, whale-watching center of New Zealand, and checked into a motel with a staggering view of the bay and the (snow-capped!) Seaward Kaikoura Mountains, it was around 5 PM. Our hostess noted some points of interest on the map, including a fur-seal colony at our end of town, so we started walking east, following the coast. About halfway along, we encountered Kaikoura Seafood BBQ - just a few tables by the side of the road, a covered space for the coolers of seafood, the grill, and the barbecue, and a boy and a girl cooking and serving.

We continued our walk out onto quiet Kaikoura bay's rutted shelf, where seals snooze, away from the surf-pounded Pacific side. As we found when we climbed to the observation point above, this is the faultline where the Indian/Australian tectonic plate meets the Pacific plate - its siltstone is a risen sea-bed, which must be why the seals look so comfortable lounging on it. It was momentous, monumental. And after its grandeur (and our tiredness), we were happy to walk back to Kaikoura Seafood BBQ for a roadside dinner.

We started with whitebait, a new Zealand specialty we haven't had before - tiny whole fish, transparent and about an inch long. They're thrown into a pan and fried up with some beaten egg, for a sort of fish foo-yong. It was served on wholemeal bread, with lemon and mesclun. It was fine, but didn't really taste like much.

It is part of the Kaikura experience to eat the local crayfish - Kaikoura apparently means "food - crayfish" in Maori. Holt, who spent some of his crucial palate-forming years in New Orleans, couldn't understand at first what this involved. $47 for just ONE crayfish - not a bucketful? "One" turned out to be a healthy lobster-sized monster. Anyone from the Big Easy would have said, "if these are your crawfish, cher, I'd hate to see your alligators." It had been caught (in a pot, lobster-style) by the girl's uncle the night before, and was halved, slathered with garlic, and grilled on the barby as soon as you pointed to it. It came adorned with mesclun, rice, lemon, and a nasturtium. All you got to deal with it was a dinner fork and some napkins, no crackers but your teeth, though Barbara obtained a spoon with a nice sharp end to poke the succulent meat out of every narrow little leg, and even the antennae. And that's what we did.

Later, we saw crayfish at twice the price, doubtless at half the freshness and quality. We are glad we stopped at Kaikoura Seafood BBQ - it topped off a magical day.

(after picture)

Akaroa Fish & Chips

Tuesday February 14

It was Valentine's Day. Usually Holt buys Barbara flowers, Barbara buys Holt chocolates, and they take each other out for (or cook for themselves) a splendid dinner. But we were on the road; flowers wilt, chocolate melts. And we were eating splendid restaurant dinners pretty much every night.

The answer: go down to Akaroa's famous fish & chips place, from which we have seen countless locals carrying paper-wrapped parcels at dinnertime (and where we ourselves tested the batter-fried oysters - quite good - the day before). Get our own parcels: the fish of the day, blue warehou, tender dark-edged flakes in a deep-fried batter coating; and another new fish (to us, though it's standard on the menu): hoki, half in batter coating, half in crumbs; each with a mountain of soft-centered hot chips and the oddly American accompaniments of lemon, tartar sauce, and ketchup instead of vinegar.

Bring the steaming parcels back to our nice room overlooking palm trees, and spread them out on the wooden table. Pop open a bottle of New Zealand bubbly, Lindauer special reserve brut cuvée. Toast each other, and Saint Valentine, and New Zealand.

Bully Hayes, Akaroa

Tuesday February 13

After a magical morning spent sailing on the 47-ft. yacht Manutara (as we were the only passengers, our captain gave us the helm for most of the trip), and our afternoon swim at the bathing beach (temperature tolerable in six inches of the surface, ice cold below), we chose a patio table at Bully Hayes to further enjoy the blue skies and view over the long harbor of Akaroa.*

And what better to enjoy them with than a 2005 Akaroa Harbour Chardonnay? It was nice and varietal, but also had that fruitiness that New Zealand wines are famous for. And we were set on having seafood, starting with the Seafood Platter: a large prawn, a crayfish (normal-sized, not a Kaikoura giant, above), one steamed and four smoked mussels, smoked scallops, some squid, and a little pot of creamed seviche.

On our sailing trip, we had seen the sea pools in which Akaroa salmon is farmed, so we ordered it here. It came as two sides of a steak with the center bones removed, basted with "Mediterranean" pesto (green and herby, but not entirely basil), served with a "tart" of potatoes on polenta, and dusted with bell-pepper confetti. Also tasty was grilled groper (apparently the same as grouper, which is NOT the same as most Atlantic grouper, but what the hell), served in a lime cream sauce with tiny new potatoes and a confetti (the chef must like them) of cucumber with tiny pink shrimp.

After a coffee, we walked over to the Akaroa Cine-café (two theaters, 16 seats apiece; spaghetti bolognese a bargain if you buy a movie ticket) and saw a good French comedy, "Hors de Prix" ("Priceless"). Maybe there are significant French aspects to Akaroa after all.


*Courtesy of the Department of Redundancy Department. Guess what Aka-roa means.