Day 4: Kingmans in Kiwi Land

Yes, I've done it... I've eaten at Fine Dining! {gasps heard in background!}. While researching restaurants in Wellington I came across Logan Brown, which is the number 1 restaurant for Wellington on Trip Advisor.

Will and I are not the sort of people that usually end up at Top Rated Restauarants, after all for Will it's more about quantity than quality. Hence we end up at places like "Smokin' Joes Rib Ranch and Hot Wings", more often than a place that has white tablecloths and waiters in aprons. (Are the aprons so they can sneak out back and do some baking between us ordering and them needing to bring our meals?)

The restaurant is in an old bank, and the ceiling is so high and just beautifully amazing! Have I used Amazing too many times in these posts about NZ? Probably... but I guess it must suit then!

So, I read on LB's website, that they have a special deal of $45 for a 3 course meal, as long as you're out by 7:30pm. It is a fixed menu, but you have 2 choices for each course. It sounded like a fantastic deal, and it so was too! We decided to go on my last night in Wellington, as a special dinner, and it was really special! YUM!

Entree was Asparagus with hollandaise and almonds. Superb! When I was growing up i used to hate "Sparrows Guts", but I'm glad I like them now, or I would have missed out on this!

Main course was Veal with apple slaw, and even though the portions were small, they were so flavoursome and amazingly exotically delicious! Yum Yum!

Dessert was an Orange Blossom ice cream square in a tuille with an orange panacotta. That Orange Blossom icecream was so Freaking delicious, I could jump into my computer screen and lick it right now! It really was a tiny square of ice cream, but I wouldn't have been able to eat any more than that, cos it was so flavoury that my taste buds would have gone into a drunk coma of delicious if I had have tried to eat more of it! YUM!

Logan Brown was well worth it, and I totally recommend the Bistro Set Menu for $45, it was magical! Logan Brown is on the southern end of Cuba St. We took a taxi from Chew's Lane, and by "We" I mean the pregnant lady and the 2 oldies, while Yvette and I hot footed it there using our good old legs, cos the taxi wouldn't fit us all in!
So that's it for my culinary trip around Wellington! I hope you've enjoyed it!
:) C

Day 3: Kingmans in Kiwi Land

Day 3 of fooding in Wellington saw us start off at Gotham for Breakfast, which was located right under our apartments on Chews Lane. How convenient!

It's kinda hard to find a good breakfast place open early(ish) on the weekend, we had to wait til 9am for Gotham to open! In Sydney, I'm sure cafes open much earlier than that! Don't they? Hmmm.. I don't get out much for Breakfast in the City to check that actually, something I should rectify!

They have 2 of these cool booths where you have a small private flight of stairs to get up to them! We HAD to sit there, seeing as we weren't restricted by needing space for prams or high chairs!

I had eggs benedict.. delicious ham.. mmmmmm....

Dad had a BLT. Look at he size of that!

Mum and Alicia had Croque Monseur.. Fried bread, can it be beaten?
And Yvette had French Toast, and you can see her post HERE.
It was a great place for Breakfast, the booths were so much fun! And the food was delicious! In fact, so delicious that we ended up going again later in our stay!
Needless to say I was so full that all I could fit in for lunch was this burger. LOL!

(Disclaimer: burger was part of a giant platter of food shared by the whole family, and not the only lunch I consumed on this day. But it does seem to be the only pic i have from the lunch at Chicago's, so lets just pretend I was on a diet and this was all I ate. LOL!)
:) C

Day 2: Kingmans in Kiwi Land...

Hi y'all!
Thank you to those people who expressed sadness that my blog has been so lonely with no new posts! Time has just been flooding away like sand through my fingers, where is it going? {looking exasperatedly at the door}. It's nearly Christmas! What the?!
Enough of the chit chat, time for a culinary adventure through Wellington, day 2.

Let me introduce you to Sweet Mother's Kitchen.. I'd have to say this was one major reason I wanted to go back to Wellington. LOL! I love Mexican food, so the thrill of eating it for Breakfast was just so captivating! Well, it's not really the same type of Mexican you'd eat for dinner, there is bacon and egg involved at Sweet Mothers, but it's got a little twist of Mexican, like my fave: Black Beans. I dunno what it is about them, but those little black pillows of delicious have me all excited. And it's probably cos you can't get Mexican Black Beans in a can in Aussie Supermarkets. (I brought some home from NZ to fill that void!)

I ate the Breakfast Burrito and I added Bacon and Hash, and that was totally the best decision I made for the whole trip. It was awesome. Like the bacon was so crispy, and the hash was crispy and the black beans made it soft, yet the outside of the Burrito looked as though it had been pressed in a waffle maker. It was so Yum. Yum yum yum. Double Yum. Did I mention I love Mexican Food?

Mum had Eggs Bomba, which was on my list to eat, but I opted for the Burrito instead (maybe we still need to go back to Wellington so I can try more of Sweet Mother's!) It's creamed spinach and artichoke with eggs and hollandaise with roasted tomatos and a baguette. Yum!

Yvette had the Huevos Rancheros which I had when Will, Jai and I visited in March. It was delish too.

This was how our bill arrived, being sat on by a Frill neck lizard who was being ridden by a man whose head was engulfed by a crocodile. Are all those things supposed to examplify us cos we're Aussie? Talk about Quirky! But that's just Wellington, full of Quirk!
Sweet Mothers is in Courtenay St, around the Theatre district & about 2 blocks from Te Papa. Go there for breakfast... or brunch... or both. YUM!
We skipped lunch on Day 2, seeing as we'd had such an awesome delicious brunch at Sweet Mother's, but we ended up searching the southern end of Cuba Street for somewhere for afternoon tea. We settled on Floriditas, mostly cos it looked nice & the other places looked as though Pick Pockets might run a rampage inside.

The decor of Floriditas was beautiful, with white "subway tiles" on all the walls, and a giant clock in the middle. The atmosphere was great, the selection of cakes was not. We were after some nice cakes/pastries for arvo tea and all they had was what was under about 6 glass domes on the counter top. There was portugese custard tarts, 2 types of cupcakes, a pear and ginger tart and a bombalina. I consider that an extrememly modest selection of cakes for a cafe that do their own baking, they consider it "a simple menu" according to their website. Fire up that oven a bit more and get adventurous you lazy bums!

One lovely thing about Floriditas though, (thankfully, or it would have been a rather boring place for arvo tea!) was their beautiful collection of china. We all had different cups, saucers and plates and they were beautiful! Mine had this gorgeous English-looking scene on it.

Here are all our plates together... (and some of the measly selection of baked goods.)

And there is my Bombalina. I also had a pot of Otago Summer Fruits tea, and I have to say it was delicious. Finally, they redeemed something against their boringness at Floriditas! LOL!

And to prove we pretty much just ATE on this holiday, dinner was amazing modern Tapas at Foxglove on Queens Wharf. It was superbly delicious, and after a little hiccup where the waitress ordered the wrong thing for us, then the other waitress tried to argue that we HAD ordered the Salmon and Dill fromage and she wasn't going to leave the table until we admitted that we ordered it and she forced us to eat it (or at least, that's how it felt that the conversation was going!)

My choice was the Mozarella balls drizzled in honey, and they, along with the hand cut chips were my faves! YUM!

Here are the freakishly awesome chips...

And the parentals {hugs!}
Go to Foxglove, it was fantastic!
So that was the end of the second day of food in Wellington! Are you still reading, or have you gone off to raid the fridge cos you're salivating? Yeah, me too!
:) C

The Kingmans in Kiwi Land! Day 1...

Hi y'all!
Yes I'm back! Yes, I'm still alive and haven't forgotten that I have a blog!
I had a fabulous trip to Wellington with Mum, Dad, Yvette and Alicia, with no husbands or children! I didn't miss Jaimeson too bad, I'd say because it wasn't an environment I was used to having him in, and there were no other children around. I was so happy when I got home though, and LOVED getting his excited cuddles and big smiles again {hearts rising from head}.
Yvette is doing a FANTASTIC job at blogging about our trip, you can read Day 1 HERE, and seeing as I'd only be repeating what she has already so beautifully blogged, I decided I would concentrate on the food aspect of our trip. Cos we ate A.LOT. Like, we ate every day! (LOL!) No really, we ate at some awesome establishments & I do like taking pics of food, so I'm going to give you the "Kingmans in Kiwi Land Grand Gastronomical Tour"! Sit back and enjoy (and salivate {licking lips!}).
I'm sorry for the poor quality of my pics, it turns out 13000 pics (overall) is quite a large number to be taken by a little pocket camera, and it has decided enough is enough! They looked fine on the camera screen, but now I've downloaded them, I find some are quite crap. {smacking hand on forehead}. Better get a new camera for Hawaii then!

Lets whet your appetite with a little plane food! In fact, it wasn't bad. I think I am actually one of those weird people who enjoys aeroplane food. {Hands smacking against cheeks}. I KNOW! These kind of people do exist!

It was chicken casserole with green beans & mash and a little side salad of roasted veggies. Can you have a salad of veggies? You know what I mean... And then there was a square of apricot and frangipani cake. It was a bit weird. Like eating a piece of cold, apricot flavoured, kitchen sponge. I finished it though.

Our first night's dinner was at the General Practitioner on the corner of Willis Street and Boulcott St in Wellington city. It was in this gorgeous old San Francisco-style house that used to be the Doctor's surgery and residence. They even still have his leather Doctor's bag and some old books and tools on display! Totally awesome.

Their menu changes nightly. Can you imagine! You could go back night after night and eat something different!

I had Salt and Pepper Squid, then shared a chocolate cake dessert with Yvette. Both were delicious! The portion was small cos it was an entree size squid, but the flavour of the squid was awesome and the avocado on the side was so yum!

 Yvette had the mussels, and Mum and Dad shared Mussels and Lamb Shanks. Yum!
The meals were all so pretty too. I love when they put effort in to presentation like this! So cool!

Here we are upstairs in the GP in what used to be the Main Bedroom. I loved it's 2 big bay windows! So beautiful. There was a photograph of the city block it's on, with all of the buildings surrounding it knocked down to the ground, with the GP just crouching on the corner of the big empty block, so lonely! I'm SO HAPPY they didn't knock it down too, it's so beautiful!

These trophy antlers were covering the walls of the room we ate in, along with heaps of hunting pics from around the Wellington area. There was so much to look at!

There was this cool display column up the centre of the staircase with all the old tools and books in it. So cool!
So that was our first awesome meal! Stay tuned for more cool eats around Wellington!
:) C