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Sarah Bennett's food reviews

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News icon. Hey, Rick – we’ve got something for you!
Scorching Bay's much-loved Chocolate Fish Café was so busy its owners must have had tranquillisers for breakfast and bath salts for supper. Before closing in late 2007, it had become so frenzied at the weekends I gave up even bothering to stop - I'd bike on right through the kerfuffle and have a Trumpet at the Seatoun shops. It finally reopened in October last year, and while some of us may have predicted that it might wash up in Shelley Bay at the former air force base, few would have guessed it... Read more
Posted Tuesday, March 09, 2010 4:53 PM by tina | 0 Comments
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News icon. A Mena Feat
Dear Laksa, I love you, you soupy noodle, you. I love your coconutty broth, fragrant with garlic, ginger, lemongrass and coriander, and curry spiced with turmeric, perhaps a little cumin, and chilli. Your rubbery fish balls send me into paroxysms of delight, as does your tofu, your slice of chicken, your boiled egg sliced in two. And as for the noodles I see entwined in your depths.... But wait! I can't see them, for they are submerged beneath lurid orange oil slicked on your surface like the spill... Read more
Posted Friday, February 19, 2010 2:25 PM by tina | 1 Comment
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News icon. Legendary Kedgeree
Thank goodness the City Gallery has reopened, now earthquake-strengthened and extended. Wellington just wasn't the same without it. As I write it's full of spotty art by dotty Yayoi Kusama of Japan. So big, so bold, so colourful - the gallery has been transformed into an oversized bag of lollies. The exhibition closes on 7 February, so if you haven't been you've probably missed it but there is some consolation. The gallery's resident café, Nikau, has reopened too. It's not so big, and not so bold.... Read more
Posted Thursday, February 04, 2010 4:07 PM by tina | 1 Comment
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News icon. Pita smile on your face
I once ate all the falafel in Wellington in two nights. Let me rephrase that: five years ago a friend and I ate a falafel at every kebab shop in town, over two nights, to see whose was best. To be utterly precise, we attempted to eat every falafel in town, but a few were so awful they got chucked in the bin after a couple of bites. This taste-test was no mean feat, for Wellington has many kebabberies. Some are a lot better than others, of course, although a big night out on the town is a great leveller.... Read more
Posted Wednesday, December 09, 2009 3:59 PM by tina | 0 Comments
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News icon. It’s another tequila sunrise…
There's nothing like a fortnight in Hawke's Bay and Eastland - where there's a season between Spring and Autumn called Summer - to put you in the mood for spicy food and a bottle of Sol with a lime wedge. And so it was, on returning to Welly late last Sunday, that Lee and I ditched the jandals and donned the Icebreaker for a walk down the hill to our Mexican cantina, The Flying Burrito Brothers. We found the FBB bright and cheery. Seated at the only vacant table (the worst, next to the till), we... Read more
Posted Thursday, November 26, 2009 9:25 AM by tina | 0 Comments
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News icon. Pravda - The honest truth
Say Pravda (Russian for truth) and the dubiously named Soviet newspaper may spring to mind. Mention Russian food and maybe you'll think of Borscht and vodka. Fortunately our version of Pravda has little to do with either. This stylish café uses a Bolshevik theme to great effect in one of the most impressive dining roooms in town. Its interesting architectural features are well capitalised on, such as the vaulted ceiling from which showy crystal chandeliers hang. An imposing bust of Lenin bids you... Read more
Posted Wednesday, November 11, 2009 9:43 AM by tina | 0 Comments
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News icon. How now, Chow?
Five years ago, in the second edition of my little yellow guidebook The Best of Wellington, I boldly declared Chow's ‘baked chocolate mousse with cinnamon anglaise' to be the city's best chocolate pudding. Last week Chow dished me up a very lazy brownie - small and floury, stone cold, served on a frigid plate with a ball of vanilla ice-cream. C'mon yuz fellas, we know you can do better. You usually do. For those of you who've been living in a cupboard or perhaps are new to town, Chow is a micro-empire... Read more
Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:15 PM by tina | 0 Comments
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News icon. Unfinished business
Indian restaurants rarely fail to satisfy me. That'll be the buttery sauces, the warm spice, stewed meat and puffy bread. At their best they offer not only comforting food, but a homely environment - one in which well-ironed gentlemen tend my needs in a softly lit, carpetted dining room that looks like Grandma did the décor. Somewhere near the other end of the scale is Reet, the new Indian restaurant on Courtenay Place where Shish Mahal used to be. Reet looks like a launch deadline missed - an ambience... Read more
Posted Wednesday, October 14, 2009 10:05 AM by tina | 0 Comments
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News icon. Ninja Star
Just twelve weeks old, Shinobi Sushi Lounge is a styley new Japanese restaurant, one of several new joints to open in the last few months. The recession, it seems, hasn't done much to stop Welly's big wheel turning. Shinobi (another word for ‘ninja') is the baby of manager Matt Goring and his co-owner, chef Jeremy Wilson. The latter's sushi schooling in Japan makes the Karate Kid's lot sound like a romp through the cherry blossoms. (‘By day he made noodles for money; by night he rolled rice for love.')... Read more
Posted Wednesday, September 30, 2009 10:43 AM by tina | 1 Comment
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News icon. Neo friendlies
As I've always said, I'd rather have a slightly stale scone served with a smile than a magnificent muffin surrendered by sullen staff with that look on their face. You know the one: the one that says ‘You're inconveniencing me. Go away.' That distracted manner, or that contemptuous nonchalance, or - in the extreme - the snarled lip and narrowed eyes of the lemon-sucker - will sure-as-eggs hamper enjoyment of that which you are paying for. The reverse is also true, of course. Cheerful and friendly... Read more
Posted Wednesday, September 02, 2009 8:40 AM by tina | 0 Comments
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News icon. Wellington On A Plate
Wellington has more restaurants per capita than New York: true or false? Who knows, although given the power of Google I could probably find out. But I'm not going to. Instead I'm just going to boast and generalise and say that this city has got some super fine restaurants catering to every taste. To remind us of that fact, our regional tourism organisation, Grow Wellington and a slew of local bars and restaurants have conjured up Wellington On A Plate (WOAP for short), an ingenious yet unashamedly... Read more
Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 9:52 AM by tina | 0 Comments
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News icon. Vini Vidi Vivo
With all this talk of our booze-culture, let's now turn our attention to that equisite drop, best consumed in modest quantities and soaked up with food. And where better to familiarise yourself with its myriad wonders than at Vivo, squirreled away down Edward Street. A wine buff I ain't, (for that expertise I direct you to local wine writer John Saker, author of the delightful exposition, How to Drink a Glass of Wine ), but I can count: Vivo offers 700 wines. Did someone mention binge-drinking? Stepping... Read more
Posted Thursday, August 06, 2009 9:59 AM by tina | 0 Comments
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News icon. Home sweet Hanoi
Maybe it's because we're creatures of habit or perhaps we're just reluctant to gamble our dinner budget on the unknown, but many of us are happy going to the same old places time after time. This is a wasted opportunity in a town with a gobsmacking number of great restaurants, and I'm very glad that this reviewing gig is pushing me off my own well-beaten culinary track. For a starter it's getting me back to restaurants I tried a few years ago but for whatever reason never went back. Restaurant 88... Read more
Posted Wednesday, July 22, 2009 4:03 PM by tina | 1 Comment
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News icon. French Fancies
In an effort to assuage the bitter taste left in my mouth by the misdemeanours of the odd French rugby player, I've been sweetening up my own personal Franco-Kiwi relationship by regularly scoffing pastries from Simply Paris. Open for two years or so, this boulangerie et pâtisserie around mid Cuba has built up an eager following, undoubtedly lured in by rows of buttery fancies, edible works of art to tempt the most resolute of weight-watchers. Rumour has it, however, that Simply Paris is dishing... Read more
Posted Wednesday, July 08, 2009 9:59 AM by tina | 0 Comments
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News icon. The Delicious Lebanese
‘Pesto was probably the biggest mistake of the ‘90s.' So said the former publisher of Cuisine magazine, speaking on the topic of food fads. I'm not entirely in agreement, (what about polenta?), but will certainly dip my chip into the debate and moot that hummus was the triumphant spread of the same era. I adore hummus, and have done ever since I first tasted it nearly twenty years ago at the Lebanese kebab shop in the Mid City Centre. Today I can eat it by the pottleful, preferably that particularly... Read more
Posted Wednesday, June 24, 2009 12:27 PM by tina | 1 Comment
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