Temperament Of Temperatures

And they’re off! Yes, Wellington On A Plate is here for 2019, and it’s in a new format this year (I can tell you’re interested already). In previous years, restaurateurs have complained, they spent a lot of time and money preparing a festival menu with festival dishes, which was largely ignored by the general public. “Why?” I hear you ask. “Why is a specially-created dish/menu, made with local ingredients, and offered at a reasonable price, ignored by the general public?” Dear reader, I’ll tell you: it’s due to the runaway success of Burger Wellington. This is the competition in which restaurants try to out-do each other with their burger creations, and tempt the general public to vote for them for the ultimate prize of Best Burger. “Why is that an issue?” you ask. Because the two promotions ran concurrently, is why. And dear old Joe Public only has limited resources of both time and money to spend on WOAP food, and was invariably taking the burger option; leaving the festival menus unloved and uneaten.

To counter this, the festival has been split into two parts: for the first two weeks, only the festival dishes are available, and for the second two weeks, only burgers. This means that the festival now runs for four weeks, not two, and allows for more of the other special events, dégustations, and related happenings to take place in a more relaxed fashion.

Temperament Of Temperatures is an event at Bambuchi, in Hataitai. It’s described as “Take your senses on a journey of temperatures and disregard everything you think you know about what hot and cold food should be. Eat your welcome drink, then enjoy three-courses of backwards temperature dishes that will confuse and delight your eyes and palate. You’ll leave wondering how did that happen?”

We arrived early and waited at the bar until the 5:30 sitting had cleared out, then took our seats at a table with two other couples. We introduced ourselves and chatted a bit before the first item on the agenda.

There was no printed menu, but the courses were written up on the blackboard: 

Jonny Taggart, the chef, came out of the kitchen, gave a short introduction to the night, and told us that when he first put together this menu, it was the middle of summer, and he’d just acquired a new ice-cream maker. This accounts for most of the dishes, normally served hot, being cold.

He then explained about the first course: a Caesar, apparently, is what Canadians call a Bloody Mary. Yes, the chef is Canadian. We won’t hold that against him. The cocktail is a frozen Bloody Mary mix made with clamato juice, and we were provided with a shot of vodka to pour over it. We also had a handy aerosol pump of vodka, to do with as we pleased. Some of us squirted it onto the glass, others directly into their mouths (one missed, and snorted). It was a very spicy drink, a bit too much for one of our table, but we enjoyed it.

Next up was an appetiser of corn crème brûlée with sweetened bacon. Very tasty.

  

The third course was a typical millennial breakfast dish: smashed avocado, poached egg, feta cheese on toast. The avocado was in the form of a popsicle, and the egg was sweetened and served on a bed of lemon sherbet (the white); whilst the toast was a rye powder crumb, dried beetroot, and a feta cheese panna cotta.

The fourth course was courgette cheesecake, with edible flowers, black olive soil and dried black sesame seeds. 

The final course was a frozen smoked venison ice-cream, served with pea puree, carrot gel, kale chips and a potato foam. The smoky flavour was really strong, yet the ice-cream melted in your mouth where you expected to be chewing on a piece of meat! Weird.

Afterwards, the chef came out again, we had a brief chat, he thanked us all for coming, we thanked him and gave a round of applause before heading out into the night. A jolly night out, and a good one to start our WOAP adventure for this year.