Stout And About

I must be a sucker for punishment. Despite all I’ve said about the Old Bailey’s burgers in the past, here and here, I still decided to try this year’s offering at pub quiz.

Firstly, it isn’t a burger, it’s a meat sandwich…something about which I have railed in the past. Putting a piece of meat between two parts of a bun (phrasing!) doesn’t necessarily make it a burger, OK? On the Burger Wellington website it’s described like this: Stout-braised beef cheek, with Kāpiti aged cheddar, caramelised onion jam, pickles, lettuce, and horseradish cream in a Pōneke Bakery brioche bun, with stout gravy dip and fries.

It looks like this: 

There’s a DVB beer match – Chin-Wag (Fruited Hazy), created specifically for WOAP, so no details available on their website at time of writing. I decided to give it a try. As it says on the tin, it’s hazy, with mango and passionfruit flavours. It actually worked quite well with the richness of the beef.

In the past I’ve complained about them throwing the kitchen sink at their burgers. This year they’ve toned it down – there were only a couple of pickles, and the onion jam was a thin smear inside the top bun. The horseradish sauce had also been diluted so the flavour was recognisable, but not overpowering. The cheese? I didn’t really notice any cheese. The meat was slow-cooked and fell apart easily, and had a good flavour as you’d expect from beef cheeks. The chips were the usual OB chips, and the gravy provided some relief to the dryness (their chips can be a bit dry sometimes).

It's not a pick-upable burger, so had to be tackled with knife and fork. Anything that has a skewer to hold it together generally falls into this category.

Overall, a better effort than in previous years. I’m scoring this 6/10, due to the meat-sandwichness, average chips, lettuce, and unpick-upability.

Dave Dobbyn

Or Sir Dave Dobbyn, as he now is…is a kiwi icon and legend. Originally in a band called Th’Dudes, he then went on to form DD Smash before continuing his career as a solo artist. He’s been around since the 70s. 

He keeps cropping up in the Tuesday night quiz at The Old Bailey, and every time he does, we don’t know the song. As he announced his tour we thought this might be a good chance to catch up with some Kiwiana culture, and also be able to answer the questions when they come up at quiz!

We went for dinner at Ombra to complete our set of stamps for the Mosaic passport…as well as the fact that we haven’t been to Ombra in a while, and it’s pretty good. It’s a Venetian-inspired Italian in the same format as their other restaurants – food comes out when they feel like it rather than any of that old-fashioned first-course-then-main-course thing.

A quick trot down Cuba Street landed us at the Opera House, which was sold out to the third level gallery – not often used for concerts. We were up in the nosebleed seats. On came the support act – a chap called Anthonie Tonnon, who as well as being a musician is the operator of Whanganui’s Durie Hill Elevator. He played a set which was part electronic music, part performance, and part repartee.

Then on came Sir Dave and his band, to tumultuous applause. He played through a set which clearly everyone in the crowd (except us) knew, and interspersed the songs with chat about the history of the songs, touring, his previous bands, life, the universe, and everything. Apparently he was thrown out of the Opera House after one particularly rambunctious gig way back in the seventies; on his return this time the stage manager (the same one!) said “you’re back then”. He couldn’t think of anything to reply to that, other than “sorry”. Hopefully he won’t have to stay away for another 40 years this time!

He gave a good long set, followed by two encores of two songs apiece. The full setlist can be found here.

So that’s Dave Dobbyn. Now we know.

 

Love Stack

 And they’re off! Yes, Wellington On A Plate is under way again, and with it, the Burger Wellington competition.

First cab off the rank was at our usual Tuesday night venue, The Old Bailey, where we were attending Quiz Night. Their offering is called Love Stack, and it is described thus on the WOAP website: Beetroot and beef patty, with haloumi cheese, crispy onion rings, cos lettuce, tomato, cucumber pickle, pesto and beetroot relish in a Brezelmania bun, with fries. The DVB* beer match is Thirst Crunch (Peach IPA), which I eschewed in favour of my usual Panhead Supercharger.

It looks like this:

OK, things to note: the bun is in fact pink, presumably from inclusion of beetroot in the bun (not mentioned). The beef burger itself seems to be their standard beef patty – I couldn’t detect any beetroot in the patty itself. Given the height of this burger I didn’t even attempt to eat this with my hands, I went straight in with the cutlery.

How was it? Well, they’ve thrown everything but the kitchen sink into this burger. The individual components were OK (apart from the rather pointless lettuce leaf and tomato), but there was no sense of cohesion about this burger. Yes, you can put lots of things into a burger; do they work together? In this instance, I’d have to say a resounding NO. I scored this a disappointing 4/10.

p.s. It seems I said much the same about their previous year's effort. The year before that wasn't much cop either. 

* Yes, after more than 10 years sponsoring the Burger Wellington competition, Garage Project have bowed out and handed the reins over to DVB, or Double Vision Brewing, a Miramar-based brewery. I’ll try some of their products with other burgers.

Sophisti-Cajun

We went to our usual Tuesday night quiz night at The Old Bailey. They’re participating in Burger Wellington as well, and their offering is called Sophisti-Cajun. I thought I’d give it a go.

It’s described on the Burger Wellington website as follows:

Beef patty with Swiss cheese, pickles, avocado, crispy Cajun onions, ketchup, mustard, and coriander sauce in a Brezelmania milk bun, with skin on Cajun fries

The Garage Project beer match is Good Shout, but I’d already ordered my usual Panhead Supercharger by that point, and the GP beer wasn’t offered by the staff.

It looked like this:

What can I say about it? There’s a bit too much going on. They’ve thrown the kitchen sink at this one, and it’s a mish-mash of flavours. To be honest, Cajun isn’t known for being a sophisticated cuisine, it’s more rustic in nature, so this burger was a bit of an oxymoron. There were too many flavours fighting each other. The only discernible heat, which I associate with Cajun, actually came from the chilli-dusted fries. Overall I thought this was an average burger, so I give it an average score: 5/10. 

On the plus side, we won the quiz.

Deer In Dough

Tuesday night is quiz night at The Old Bailey, and we usually dine there when quizzing. As they’re also participating in Burger Wellington, this is a good opportunity to try their offering, Deer In Dough.

It described on the WOAP site as: Venison patty seared in duck fat, with crunchy red cabbage and fennel slaw, and plum and cherry chutney on a Brezelmania charcoal milk bun, with crispy skin fries and aioli.

And it looks like this: 

The Garage Project beer match is Good Shout, but they don’t appear to be promoting that at all. Anyway, I had my usual Black Dog Chomp.

What can I say about it? Venison is a tricky meat as it can be a bit dry, due to its leanness. The black burger is, well, a gimmick really. I found the whole thing fitted the name a little too well – it felt quite bready and doughy to me. I was able to pick this one up and the bun maintained integrity until the end, despite the slaw and chutney filling. The fries were their usual, no sign of crispy skins on them. Overall, this felt a bit like they’d phoned it in. I scored it 5/10.

 

London Calling

Once more unto the San Fran, this time to see The Clash cover band London Calling, who hail from Bristol. This was the penultimate date of their Oz/NZ tour, playing in Auckland the next night; having been around Australia extensively beforehand. The Clash, you say? Yes, I know some of their songs! We should go!

To sustain us through the long night ahead, I searched establishments nearby. Many have changed names or changed hands, and what was once Heaven Pizza now appears to be Santeria. They still sell pizza though, so we had that.

Then we trotted down Cuba Street, bumping into quizmaster Andy & wife Tanya on the way – it was kinda pre-arranged, we knew we’d both be at the gig. Andy is a Clash aficionado, whereas I’m more of a dilettante – I only have London Calling and Combat Rock in my collection.

The support band came on just after 8pm – a local Wellington band called Mister Unit. They sound like a good old-fashioned rock band, and also sound like a company that replaces the doors on your kitchen cabinets.

Mister Unit

Then the main act, London Calling, arrived. My knowledge of The Clash isn’t comprehensive, so I only knew about half the songs they played, but they included Tommy Gun, White Man In Hammersmith Palais, Rudy Can’t Fail, Should I Stay Or Should I Go?, Death Or Glory, The Guns Of Brixton,  Clampdown, and I fought The Law. After a brief interval they reappeared for a three-song encore of Rock The Casbah, London Calling, and White Riot.

London Calling

This was definitely a high-energy gig, and all the songs were delivered with vim, vigour and verve. It was exhausting just watching them. At the front, some of the young folk (and some of the older folk – the crowd demographic was more diverse than I’d expected) were moshing and pogoing away like in the old days…the only difference being that the band was probably more together than at an original Clash gig. We so punk rock!

Down One Level

As of 11:59pm last night, all of New Zealand apart from Auckland and Northland went down to Covid Alert Level 3. Auckland and Northland remain at Level 4 whilst the current Delta variant outbreak is contained, as they are still reporting new cases daily. This is largely as a result of the delay in testing and getting results. Unfortunately, the instruction to “self-isolate at home” if you have the disease is impractical in many households where multigenerational families all live in cramped conditions, so once one person gets it, the chances are the whole household will eventually become infected.

 

Level 3 allows the opening of take-away food for contactless delivery and pick-up. I had high hopes of being able to get back into our Loggy B’s ordering for LB At Yours, but could find no mention of it on their website…so I emailed them, and they replied that they’re not doing it this time. Their logic is, presumably, that we’re expecting Level 3 to only last a week before being reduced to Level 2, at which point they’ll be able to open up with distanced tables. This is in marked contrast to last time, when we didn’t know how long Level 3 would last (it turned out to 16 days). The review for this time around is on 6^th September, and with no new cases reported in Wellington since the weekend, and the expectation of no new cases in the community, it seems likely that we’ll go to Level 2 at that time. All the Wellington cases reported so far have been linked to the Auckland outbreak, and subsequently travelled to Wellington, and infected family members here.

I also took a look at The Larder’s offerings on their website, but when I looked in the morning they only had coffees. Since then they’ve updated their website, but I’d already put in my order for Gorilla Burger. We’ll give The Larder a try tomorrow – they’ve got quite a wide selection.

Other than that, Level 3 looks much the same as level 4. We can, theoretically, go swimming, surfing or paddleboarding, but I don’t think we’ll be doing any of those just yet. Quiz will continue to be online for at least one more week, but maybe by mid-September we’ll be back at the Old Bailey.

 

 

Here We Go Again

Three new cases of Covid-19 have been discovered in the community, i.e. outside MIQ. They’re the new UK strain. So we’re back to the Covid levels again, and as with last time, there’s a higher level for Auckland (Level 3) than for the rest of the country (Level 2). At the moment this is a 72-hour lockdown, presumably so that they can try and trace the source of transmission and check all other contacts for it. This is different to previous cases where a community case has been found because it is (a) the UK strain, and (b) not linked to MIQ or historic cases.

How does this look to my overseas readers? Are we in a panic over three cases? Last time this happened was in August last year, when the new cases quickly spiralled into New Zealand’s largest cluster of nearly 200 cases. On the other hand, no-one’s died from Covid for ages here, and we’re not reporting daily cases and deaths in the hundreds or thousands.

Again, looking at August 2020 as the most recent comparison, what started out as a 3-day lockdown ended up being 41 days at Level 2, with Auckland spending even longer before they returned to Level 1. So let’s not count our chickens.

What does this mean for us? It’s back to wearing masks on public transport, and hopefully more people will start to re-use the app again – now with new, improved, Bluetooth! Also, the Old Bailey will have to reconfigure their tables for pub quiz and resume table service only. Other events for which we had high hopes are no doubt under review – theatre, international cricket, Bill Bailey and Crowded House are scheduled in the next month. Hopefully we’ll get to at least some of these.

Quiz World Cup

For the past few weeks, I’ve been competing in the Quiz World Cup run by Quizzing.tv. This is a competition run from the UK but involving, initially, 80 teams from 24 countries. Our team, Kiwiz, is run by our quizmaster at The Old Bailey, where we go quizzing weekly. This year, he invited me to join his team. It’s the only team from New Zealand, so I am, in a totally informal way, representing the country.

The quiz is run via Zoom, on the weekend, at a time agreed between the teams. The time differences make it a bit of a challenge for little ol’ New Zillund, especially when we compete against USA teams. The format includes individual rounds as well as team rounds. We’re sent the round subjects 20 minutes in advance, but they’re usually pretty vague (“Science” or “Lakes”, for example) so it’s not possible to try and Google answers before you begin…memorise all of Science in 20 minutes! Obviously, Googling or getting any other assistance during the quiz is a no-no – it was widely suspected that one competitor was using his phone, so we now have a rule that hands must be visible at all times!

The first round was a group stage – 16 groups of five teams each. The top two teams in each then graduated to the next group stage, so last 32. These were 8 groups with four teams. We came second in our first round group, so qualified for the next stage (losers go into a series of “rosette” competitions so final rankings can be determined). Some of these teams contain the best quizzers from their countries: in round 2 we found ourselves up against Scotland B, which includes Anne Hegerty (The Governess from The Chase). We lost by one point against them so picked up a bonus point there. We won the rest of our matches, including against Quiz Van Der Rohe, a German team which includes one of the German Chasers known as The Quiz Volcano from their version of The Chase,  Gefragt – Gejagt. So one-all on Chasers faced! Not bad, eh?

We’re now in the final 16, which is quite an achievement in itself. We’ll be playing another American team, The Zoomtown Rats, who apparently include America’s best quizzer (he’s won over $1m on Jeopardy!, and also is ranked #2 in the world), this weekend. Wish us luck!

Opa!

My best-laid plans have been ganging aglay like nobody’s business recently! Burger opportunities are being thwarted at every turn.

On Saturday, I was shadowing a Zealandia Twilight Tour. It ended later than I anticipated, so my plan to pick up a burger at Kelburn Village Pub was denied, as their kitchen shuts at 9pm, and we didn’t get out until quarter past. Oh, well, no problem, I’ll get one tomorrow…

On Sunday, KIWIZ, the quiz team I have been participating in the World Cup with, were due to play a team from California, Cogito Ergo Mum. Due to time differences and people needing to get to work, the time we agreed was 2:00 am UK time (all timings are run from the UK, as the organisers are UK-based) i.e. 2:00 pm Sunday afternoon for us, and 7:00 pm Saturday for our opposition. So far, so good…but when the notifications came through, however, they all said 1:00 am UK time. “Oh, that’s because they’re changing to Summer Time” someone said – but that doesn’t happen until this weekend. At this point I said I wouldn’t be able to make it, as I had a morning shift at Zealandia.

That’s when the trouble really started. As I was coming off shift, I checked my phone. The time had now been switched back to 2:00 pm, but one of our team members couldn’t make it, so I said I could step in and rushed back home, burgerless. My plan had been to stop in town and pick one up along the way. As it was, I had no time.

I got home, checked in again, and found that they were back up to four people, so didn’t need me after all! So I had no quiz, no burger, and was generally discombobulated. Harrumph!

On Monday night, I was due back at Zealandia for After Hours Valley Emergency training. This started at 6:30 pm, so this time I was finally able to stop at Kelburn Village pub and try their burger. It’s called Opa! and sounds like this: Moroccan-spiced chicken with slaw and Elysian tzatziki in an Arobake beetroot bun, with beer-battered onion rings and polenta fries.

And here’s how it looked: 

Now I’m not normally a big fan of polenta (who is?), but the deep-fried “chips” weren’t bad. The burger was OK, a little on the small side, and the chicken agreeably spicy. Bun integrity was good, and overall the whole meal was…unexceptional. It did the job, and what it said on the tin, but no-one’s going to be writing home about what a great culinary experience they’ve just had. It is, after all, pub grub. As I was going straight on to work I went without the Garage Project beer match, which would have been Noon Juice. Instead, I had cranberry juice. I scored the burger 6/10.

Over the coming week I’ve got more training to do, so my burger choices might be dictated by convenience and speed rather than what looks the best. Hopefully some of them will be good.

 

 

 

G & T Burger

The more quick-witted amongst my readership may have noticed that Burger Wellington is this year taking place in October, rather than the customary August. This is, of course, due to the covids. The original aim of WOAP was to encourage people into restaurants and other venues during the cold, dark days of winter (i.e. August), helping venues to survive through the lean months. Naturally, when the plague struck, the festival was put on hold, but with remarkable alacrity they managed to reorganise for October.

 

Tuesday night is our regular quiz night at The Old Bailey, so I decided to try their burger offering, the G & T Burger. It’s described like this: Reid + Reid gin infused lamb and venison patty with crispy bacon and jalapeño cheese spread in a Zaida's spirulina brioche bun, with cross trax fries. It looks like this:

 

The Garage Project beer match was Hāpi Daze - an old classic that I was happy to wash the burger down with.

The Old Bailey is not known for its cuisine – they serve fairly standard pub grub most of the time. This was actually better than their normal burger, which is fairly run of the mill. I couldn’t detect any gin in the burger, but this may have been due to the fact that the flavours of the burger were pretty well dominated by the jalapeño. As they say on Cheftermast, make sure your dish is in balance. In this case it wasn’t, so I was just left with the overwhelming chilli. The cross trax fries were a sort of potato waffle. They weren’t salted enough (and there’s no salt & pepper on tables these days, because, you know, covids) and they may have been better off just doing chips. So overall not a great burger. I’m scoring it 5/10. As mentioned previously, there's nowhere to actually record our scores this year, for reasons.

Anyway, I know that what you really want to know is how we did in the quiz. We came 3^rd.

Covid-Free Since 8th June

Today’s announcement of the current Covid-19 numbers reached a new milestone today. For the last 17 days there have been no new cases. Today, the final person showing symptoms has officially recovered, so there are no active cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand. Woohoo!

Shortly after 3pm, the prime minister Saint Jacinda acknowledged this, and said that New Zealand would move to Covid-19 alert Level 1 with effect from midnight tonight. There is no requirement to give 48 hours’ notice, as there had been under previous changes to the alert level, as there were no preparations which needed to be put in place to go to Level 1.

What does Level 1 look like? The borders are still effectively closed, with only specific movements of people in and out, and 14-day quarantines remaining in place for people entering the country. The recent arrival of film workers to start the Avatar sequels project are an example of this, and still need to stay in quarantine a further week before they can begin. Otherwise, businesses can open up as normal, and city centre workers are being encouraged to return to offices, in an effort to support those other businesses – hospitality and retail, for example – that rely on office workers being at their desks. People are still encouraged to maintain good hygiene, coughing etiquette, stay home if they feel ill, and record their movements in the event of a further outbreak – the government’s Covid-19 tracer app and Wellington’s Rippl are both still available for use.

We went back to pub quiz last week under level 2 for the first time, but this week we’ll be able to actually order at the bar, and mingle with other teams and our host, Andy.

Over the coming weeks we should hear more about extending our national “bubble”, both across the Tasman to Australia, and into the Pacific, when it is prudent to do so. It will probably be some time before we can return to normal travel to the rest of the world, though. For the time being it looks like we will be holidaying in New Zealand,  and we will of course be doing our bit to support local businesses and tourism.

Venturing Out

We’re allowed out. Saint Jacinda has reduced restrictions further, and we’ve taken advantage to support local businesses and actually visit some places which were closed to us previously.

On Saturday, I went to Zealandia, this time in an official capacity. Wellington City Council has made the sanctuary free for general admission until the end of June, but word hadn’t seemed to have spread much, and the weather forecast was for dampness, if not actual rain, in the afternoon. The valley wasn’t too crowded, but we did have a bonus ruru roosting in the trees so I was able to point that out to people, as well as the more usual sightings of korimako, kererū, takehē, and kākā.

On  Monday, I went to the dentist, to have my crown implant fitted. Yes, going to the dentist is considered an exciting venture these days! I guess they have quite a backlog to deal with, but I’m also guessing that they’re prioritising high-value appointments so that they can get some much-needed cashflow. Anyway, I’m not complaining, as the hole in my mouth has been filled.

On Wednesday, we took ourselves over the hills and far away, via the Remutaka Hill Pass, to Martinborough, to visit some vineyards and try some wines. As it was midweek, not many were open – but this is normal for what is now coming into winter season, where many vineyards are only open to the public at weekends. We thought we’d beat the rush. First call was at the i-site in the library, to establish which vineyards actually were open; the vineyard map, usually reprinted at the beginning of each season, didn’t reflect current events. There were five open, and we had a lunch reservation at one of them. We first went to Luna Estate, and had a tasting there. We then hit our lunch spot, Poppies, where the eponymous Poppy was clearly away working behind the scenes (we’re at the end of vintage, and the process of making wine doesn’t stop just because there’s a pandemic). We had lunch of a shared platter there. They weren’t doing tastings but I picked up a couple of bottles of pinot noir anyway to add to my vertical tasting. I now have 2013 – 2018 in my cellar. Final call was in at Margrain, which I last visited two years ago when Andrew and Zoe were here. They gave us a tasting, but said “no spittoons because the covids”, which hadn’t seemed to trouble them at Luna. They were also the only place that had a QR-code tracking system in place – everywhere else (including the library) were still on paper and pen systems.

On Friday we did Eat The Film – At Home. The Roxy Cinema, our local cinema in Miramar, organises regular “Eat The Film” events whereby they put on a classic movie, and provide drinks and eats related to the film. On one such occasion we were given food and drink at intervals throughout the screening, but that can get a bit cumbersome so these days they tend to just give you one package and a drink before it starts. Now, under Level 2 restrictions, this isn’t going to work, so they’ve organised a take-away service instead: a reheatable meal, and cocktail, for you to accompany a themed film at home. This week’s theme is No Time To Dine, so we had The Pie Who Loved Me, CIA Salad, Goldenrye, and the cocktail Dye Another Day. Full details here:

On Saturday, Nicola was back at orchestra – they were rehearsing in separate sections to meet the maximum 10 people rule. I was back at Zealandia again in the afternoon, so I pulled into the Birdwood car park where I normally park…full. Up the road…cars parked in every available space. This is due to Wellington Council making the sanctuary free for general admission until the end of June; word has now got out, and as it was a sunny day, many Wellingtonians decided to take advantage of this offer! Unfortunately this meant I had nowhere to park. In desperation I went into the Zealandia carpark itself and observed cars coming out. As I’d hoped, these were people who’d been there in the morning and were now departing, leaving some free spaces. Staff aren’t supposed to park there – the logic being that they could prevent paying visitors from parking and spending. But as they’re not paying anyway, I used Cummings’ logic to avail myself of a space. As expected, the valley was full of visitors, so I had plenty of work talking to people, giving directions and pointing out wildlife. I was the only volunteer on in the afternoon, so I gave both mini-talks. We’re supposed to be limiting the talks to maximum eight people, but if twenty-plus people turn up to listen, what can you do? So long as they’re maintaining social distancing that’s OK, but the point of the kākā talk is…the kākā! So, people crowd around to try and see them on the feeding station. Oh well, there hasn’t been a new case of covid in Wellington for a month, and the last person with it got better last week.

I was back on Sunday morning, and even for the early shift the car parks were full. I managed to find a space on Raroa Crescent, and there weren’t many cars parked there by the time I’d finished my shift, so this will probably be my go-to place from now on. Once again the valley was busy, but even so there was plenty of wildlife for people to see. Next weekend the forecast is for rain, so it will be interesting to see how many people show up.

Monday was a rain day, providing 50mm of much-needed rainfall in Wellington, and hopefully similar amounts to the drought-stricken North, but on Tuesday we managed a visit down to Scorch-O-Rama for afternoon tea and cake. We’ve not actually been there for a week! During Level 3 we were there nearly every afternoon.

Restrictions on pub openings have been relaxed, so we were anticipating our first pub quiz in two months. I’d booked the table in The Old Bailey. On the day, they called me (and presumably everyone else amongst their regulars) to let them know that quiz was going ahead. I explained I’d already booked a table, and we were looking forward to it. Later in the day, however, another phone call: only one other team had booked, so it was cancelled. Boo! Were people really so disorganised that they hadn’t anticipated that the quiz would be back? Maybe they had FOGO? Hopefully we’ll be back to pub quiz next week. As it was, we hastily re-organised our Houseparty quiz night, and ordered online from Gorilla Burger again.

Today we went out to The Larder for lunch. We’ve been supporting them with their take-away click-and-collect offerings, but felt it was time to get indoors with them. This is the last week of their country-themed offerings (they’ve done Greece, Vietnam, France, and now Italy) so we both had items from the Italy menu. It’s nice to be back, and it’s nice to be greeted by the regular staff as well.

Level 2 is likely to around for at least another two weeks, but once again there is agitation from various quarters to relax the rules further as quickly as possible. With no new cases for five days, and only 21 people still classified as active, it does appear to be eliminated; but the government is staying ultra-cautious as they don’t want a resurgence, and possible increased restrictions again. The logic here is that we can withstand one lockdown, but two would be really bad. Watch this space…

Level Two Is Coming

Saint Jacinda announced on Monday that New Zealand would be going to Covid-19 Level Two at 23:59 on Wednesday, 13^th May. This means that from Thursday, more businesses can open, we can sit in cafés and restaurants again, and people can go back to work and school, with appropriate spacing measures in place. Woohoo!

For us, this means we can go back to volunteering at Zealandia (me), and possibly taking tours (the level of demand for tours is still being worked out – watch this space!), and going back to chorus and orchestra (Nicola). Pub quiz is going to take a little longer – pubs are closed for a further week, so we’ve got at least two more virtual quizzes before we can even contemplate the possibility of actually going to the pub for a, you know, PUB quiz.

Of course, this has only just started, so over the past week we’ve continued taking deliveries from our favourite cafes and restaurants. Whilst we’ve been keen to spread the love, we do keep coming back to those that are our particular favourites, and that provide a service that we’re happy with.

Scorch-O-Rama: We continue to support our local café when we go out for a walk, getting coffee and tea there and doing the crossword by the beach. We’ll get a proper brunch there when they open up again. Total cost: $9.00.  Overall rating: still 8/10.

The Larder: The Larder were offering “Greek Week” last week, as many people had commented that they were planning to be away in Europe/the world/anywhere else but here. Jacob cooked up a selection of Greek treats, so we had a Greek lunch on Friday, consisting of lamb gyros followed by galaktoboureko. Next week is Vietnam, so we’ll be going back for another lunch. Total cost: $41.20 (including $1.20 card charge). Overall rating: 9/10.

Field & Green: The first time we’d ordered from them, but we’ve been there regularly and their beef cheek goulash looked like a tasty option. They delivered at 7:30pm (having promised 7:00pm) but had texted to let us know of the delay, so can’t really fault them for that. Also, a delivery charge of only $5 to Eastern Suburbs is cheaper than everyone else. Whilst it is supposed to be delivered hot, I suspect it had been in the vehicle a while so we needed to reheat. Not a problem, except the lids of the containers turned out not to be microwave-proof! Fortunately I caught this before any damage was done. The beef cheeks were delicious, there was a creamy mash and sauce as well, but I decided we needed to add a side of peas to round out the dish. Still, a very good option, and it comes with pudding included as well – a slice of bakewell tart. The only problem is…it’s really the only option on their menu (they’re also doing a vegetarian goulash, and kedgeree, but that’s more of a brunch thing) so we’ll probably make this a one-off. Total cost $75.00, including $5.00 delivery. Overall rating: 9/10.

And Then There Were Two

The latest news from the government is that it is likely that they will take us down to COVID-19 Level 3 next week, and that this will last for a further two weeks. In terms of practical differences for us, this doesn’t really change anything. We don’t have anyone that we need or want to include in our bubble in terms of extended family or carers, we’re not getting married or dying (we hope!), don’t have children, aren’t going to be swimming, surfing or mountain biking any time soon. So it’s a further two weeks of socially isolating, hoping the weather stays good enough for going outside for walks, and lots of Netflix.

Jonny and Sarah have been with us for almost a month now, but have managed to find flights for a reasonable (i.e. not extortionate, as they were a couple of weeks ago) price with Qatar Airways, so this morning at 9:30 we drove them to Wellington Airport, there to meet with Macbeth board a plane to Auckland, and thence Doha and London. It’s going to be weird not having them here! They have been very good house guests, helping out with cooking and cleaning, and also providing us with useful players, particularly for bridge. They have rented a house on Airbnb for two weeks to self-isolate when they land, then go to Sarah’s parents in Yorkshire for a month before they can return to their own home – which is still currently rented out, as they weren’t planning to be back in the UK until June.

There was no queue at New World as we returned – an eventuality I had anticipated – so I was ready, list in hand, to go and do some shopping. They had some things which were missing last week (oranges, frozen peas), so I restocked, but no large bottle of OJ. There’s always something weird that they’ve not got, but the basics are all there.

So that’s us on our own now…but we’ll see people online. Andrew (Jonny’s brother) is organising a weekly quiz for the family, so we’ll be participating in that. And of course we have our own quiz night on Tuesdays, which is replacing our usual pub quiz.

Tasty Grub Burger

Tuesday night is quiz night at The Old Bailey, and we’ve returned there for our weekly quiz fix. This follows a change in our dancing arrangements from Tuesday to Thursday night, so we’ve abandoned Island Bay Brew’d for a city centre location, which helps more people to join us as an after-work activity.

Why do I mention this? Well, the Old Bailey are also participating in Burger Wellington, so as well as quizzing I was also able to sample their burger entry, the Tasty Grub Burger. It is described as: smoked beef brisket in bourbon sauce in a Zaida's Bakery bun, with baby spinach, homemade tomato jam, crispy bacon and caper bits, with chunky fries. There’s no Garage Project beer match as The Old Bailey is a Monteith’s, and therefore Black Dog, pub. I had my usual pint of Pug Life to wash it down. It looks like this:

First things to note: although not included in the description above, it is stated in the menu that it's a beetroot bun – you can see the pinkness inside. Not that you’d notice it tasting of beetroot, unless perhaps you tried it on its own, so more of an aesthetic thing, really. Secondly, the “chunky fries” were in fact their standard fries. All the other components were there, although the purpose of the “caper bits”, a few of which were randomly scattered over the top, was beyond me. The burger squished down to a manageable handful and maintained its integrity throughout: unlike a lot of burger offerings, it was not overly endowed with wet ingredients, a key cause of bun sogginess and generally messy eating. If anything, it was a little on the dry side. The brisket was well cooked – slow-cooked and tender. Once again, this was a meat sandwich rather than a burger, with the meat not formed into a patty. I’ll try and find one that has a proper burger for my next outing.

The Old Bailey is not particularly noted for its cuisine; it does good pub grub. It’s good of them to enter into the spirit of Burger Wellington, but they’re never going to win. I scored this a 6.

Results Are In

The final results for Wellington On A Plate’s Burger Wellington competition have been published. The winner is…Charley Noble’s Shooting Charley. You may remember me having a go at them earlier for putting their standard burger out as their entry. Well, they jazzed it up with a slice of pineapple, branded the top and served it with a shot of rum (and, probably, an “aaarr, matey!” as well). This, apparently, was enough to sway the judges that this was the best burger. I am sceptical.

In the “Best Burger/Beer Match” category, Café Medici from Martinborough won with their Holy Cow Burger. I didn’t get to Martinborough during WOAP, but it looks like a tasty burger. Maybe they’ll still be offering it when next we cross the mountains – spring is on its way so we’ll be heading over the Rimutaka Hill Road at some point soon, no doubt.

In other news, the results of the Battle Of The Brains quiz night have been made semi-public. Frankly, the organisation of this event has been a bit rubbish this year, and this appears to have carried over into the scoring, as 4 teams scored more than 120 points (the maximum). Our entry, What We Do In The Shadow Limits, ended up at 18^th on this dodgy ranking. Whilst many are there for the beer and general enjoyment of the evening, if you muck about with the raison d’être of the evening then people will stop going, and it will be self-defeating. It was noticeable that there were fewer tables than last year, and the year before that they were turning people away. There’s some food for thought for the organisers.

What We Do In The Shadow Limits

What We Do In The Shadows is a 2014 New Zealand mockumentary which follows the exploits of a group of Wellington vampires. It’s been a big hit in New Zealand. It’s very funny and you should go and see it if you get the chance – it will be released in Europe on or around Halloween.

A “Shadow Limit” is a banking term which describes an unadvised limit which allows a credit-worthy customer to borrow beyond their authorised overdraft or credit card limit.

What We Do In The Shadow Limits is our team name for the Battle Of The Brains 2014 charity quiz night organised by ANZ.  This year the theme is “A Night at the Movies”, hence our choice; surprisingly (to me at least) we were the only ones with that idea. In previous years we’ve gone as Yes We Can!, Grexit and Gorgeous Georges.

I scored my costume off TradeMe - it was a cheap option - and accessorized it with my own waistcoat. We had semi-professional make-up done by one of the team members who does stage make-up. Whilst some of our team opted for the full white-face and undead look, I decided on just the dribbling blood. I also had some vampire fangs, but these turned out to be more trouble than they were worth, so I ditched them. The rest of our team headed down to the Costume Cave to get vampire costumes, where they found that they couldn't just get costumes like those from the film - they could get the actual costumes! The film had been a very low-budget affair, and apparently they'd hired from Costume Cave rather than have a fully-fledged costume department.

Suitably attired, we made our way over to the TSB Arena for the quiz. It's been held here since the earthquake in August 2013 damaged the Amora Hotel, which was our previous venue. It's not as intimate a venue, and the event does get a bit lost in the cavernous space, as opposed to the ballroom at the Amora.

There has also been a bit of a change in the organisation, and we no longer get updates throughout the evening to see where we are on the leader board, which is a bit of a retrograde step. They announced the top three teams halfway through, but we weren't in that, so had no idea how we were doing. Nevertheless, we ploughed on regardless, buying beer (part of the price contributed to Daffodil Day) and buying raffle tickets, which failed to net us anything. We were also robbed when it came to the best costume competition - Mrs Brown won that.

So that's that for another year. When I find out where we finally placed I'll update this.

Battle Of The Brains

...or should I title this post "déjà  vu"? Discerning readers of Wellington Boots may well remember this event from last year, when I was but a rookie at the ANZ National Bank. The event is to raise money for the Cancer Society. National Bank has a history of supporting their annual fundraising campaign, Daffodil Day, and this is the 21st Annual Battle Of The Brains competition.

The organisation of the competition had changed slightly since last year. Our team captain had put in an early bid for a table, and we were accepted. Unfortunately, due to events entirely beyond his control, he was forced to go skiing in Wanaka for the week in which the event would be held. Casting around for a deputy, yours truly was selected. Not that there's much to be done once the table has been allocated, but someone has to organise and take a lead.

We had, over a lunch consisting of beer and pizza at Lovelocks Bar, decided on a theme for our costume, which was Grexit - the possibility of Greece exiting the Euro and European Monetary Union, which at the time (a month or so ago) seemed highly likely. We therefore contacted a retailer of fancy goods who was able to supply us with 16 Greek flags at the princely cost of $6 each, and printed off pictures of a cracked Euro coin and a green exit sign, cunningly manipulated to say GREXIT. We assembled these into a low-cost costume consisting of two Greek flags stitched together, and wore the grexit signs around our heads, whilst the Euro medallions swung around our necks on lanyards, in the style of gangsta rappers or Olympic medal winners.

Thus adorned, we headed down to the Amora Hotel on foot, accompanied by a bunch of Muammar Gaddafis and a team of reindeer pulling the Snow Queen (from Narnia).

Sorry about the blurriness - cameraphone!

The quiz followed a familiar format of 10 rounds with 2 jokers; there were also auctions and raffle prizes to be won. After the first four rounds, the leader board was shown, and Team Grexit was in first place! Admittedly we had played both our jokers, but we had selected those rounds from those available early on, and we had come good on them. I was particularly proud of our performance on the Science round, because I can do science, me.

As the quiz progressed (and after a particularly parlous Geography and History round) we found that at the next update, after 8 rounds, we were down to third. But we finished strongly on what we thought would be our two worst subjects (entertainment and famous faces) thanks to the help of our token young person, and also a ringer-in from Auckland who was visiting the Wellington office and who we had recruited at the last minute; we scored a 10 and a 9 in the final two rounds.

As the judges counted and recounted the points, we waited with bated breath. We strongly suspected we were in a top 5 position, (we were 15th last year) but were elated and delighted to be announced as 3rd equal, out of 50+ teams in total. Our prize is a $100 voucher at The General Practitioner, which I think we can put to good use, particularly as I rated their burger so highly not a few days ago!

Battle Of The Brains

My employer is one of the principal sponsors of Daffodil Day, New Zealand’s Cancer Society’s annual fund-raising day. One of the main events the bank holds is Battle Of The Brains, a quiz competition for all Wellington-based staff. Quiz, you say? With my reputation? ;-) Yes, I joined a team of eight organised in our department.

One of the features of the competition is that all the teams dress up in fancy dress. There is, naturally, a competition for this as well. Some teams (clearly those with more money than sense, and far too much time on their hands – yes, Marketing, I’m looking at *you*) go overboard and do fully themed team costumes, make-up, wigs etc. whereas most teams go for a more “home-made” approach. We threw a few ideas around when the competition was first announced, and finally decided that we would go for something that would be fairly easily put together with a few props and a couple of face masks: under the team name “Yes We Can!” we went as Barack and Michelle Obama, together with their secret service security detail – i.e. the remaining six of us dressed up in dark suits, white shirts, dark glasses, and the finishing touch – those curly-wired earpieces that go down the back of your collar.

"Yes We Can!" - indistinguishable from the real thing

The gig was being held at the Amora Hotel on Wakefield street, so we walked down there from the office in full cosutume, and in character: “Step away from the President, Sir!” and similar badinage. Joke of the evening – supplied by yours truly and applied to just about anything or anyone deemed a threat to the president:

“Agent Collins, there’s a goat in the corner of the room”

“Roger that”

(Cue hilarious laughter)

The quiz followed the usual format – 10 rounds, two jokers, various audio-visual aids for the music round and others. We scored well at the beginning and after two rounds were in the lead. Unfortunately we shared that lead with 5 other teams! We gradually slid down the leader board as we made some glaring errors (Azerbaijan won the Eurovision Song Contest? Who knew? Er, some of the others, apparently) and eventually finished at 15^th out of 55 teams, and only eight points off the winning score, so not a bad effort overall.

Along the way there were various auctions for other prizes, a dancing competition, and the aforementioned “best-dressed team” competition. The winners were the Scary Scarecrows, who’d gone for full make-up effects as well. I think we were robbed, however, as we were all in suits and ties and therefore clearly the best-dressed team. The judges seem to have misinterpreted this as meaning “most original costume” or something. Humph.

Freddie & Elvis were there, too (Dead Pop Stars team)

Anyway, we all had a thoroughly good time, and some of the teams then headed into town for further “refreshment”. I went along to Molly Malone’s for a couple of beers – a slightly bizarre sight as people in the pub watched a bunch of American gangsters enter, followed by secret service agents and Wonderwoman. But they took it in their stride – just another night out in Wellington.