Wellington On A Plate

Disaster struck on Tuesday night as we headed up to the Backbencher for our usual quiz night: the pub was closed for a private function! The owner, Boycie, had forgotten to tell us about this last week (in fact, the same thing happened last year when we made our first abortive attempt to participate in the quiz here). I quickly texted all the usual participants to let them know.

But, what to do? We had nothing prepared for dinner, and the night was drawing on. Fortunately, we are slap-bang in the middle of Wellington’s annual festival of food, Wellington On A Plate, where many of the capital’s cafés and restaurants offer special deals for a fortnight, as well as other events being organized. Unfortunately we didn’t have our magazine guide with us, so we just headed to the nearest place we could remember that was participating – and a place we haven’t visited for a good while: Pravda. The deal they were offering was a three-course dinner with matching wines. The menu was cheese leek & pancetta tartlet, sous-vide lamb with pumpkin mash, Israeli couscous and tapenade, and Whittaker's chocolate torte with poached pear and vanilla ice cream.

Other events being offered during WOAP include lunchtime tasting at Kirkcaldie & Stains, Wellington’s main department store. As this is conveniently located just round the corner from where I work, I’ve been trying to drop in there at lunchtimes to sample what’s on offer. On Monday, Kapiti Kitchen were offering samples of their cordials – Nicola is a fan of their Ginger Lemon & Honey, but they were offering new varieties. On Tuesday an olive oil producer from Martinborough, Olivo, was giving samples of flavoured olive oil which included their new cumin flavour, as well as staples such as smoked chilli and fennel.

Tonight we’re booked into Arbitrageur for dinner, who are offering a two-course dinner with wine. The menu is: Blue warehou with potato and fennel, roast pork belly with apple & fennel compote, and meringue with lemon curd, crème vanilla and passionfruit. All accompanied with a Wellington wine, the Ata Rangi Petrie Chardonnay 2009 from Martinborough.

  

More WOAP adventures soon!