Eating Queenstown, New Zealand

God, I'm getting really behind in my posts! Must catch up before the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival starts, otherwise fuhgeddaboutit.

Anyway it was a month ago now that J and I spent a week in New Zealand, eating and drinking our way around Queenstown and Central Otago. We had a glorious time, thanks to dozens of recs from the Twitterverse and the blogosphere - we did our best to try everywhere that was recommended, which means that I’m going to have to split this up over a few posts. So I'll get started.

Queenstown is the adventure capital of NZ. Personally I think that jumping off bridges with your feet tied to a big rubber band is a bit mental, so I spent most of my time nomming my way through the dozens of bars, restaurants and cafes. 

Fergburger, 42 Shotover St, Queenstown. www.fergburger.com

Burger joint that attracts a cult-like devotion from snowboarders, drunken revellers, Asian bus tourists and European backpackers alike. I can see why: they're really goddamn good burgers. And the place is just so cool. Grill'd, eat your heart out. Be prepared to wait in line - all their burgers are cooked to order, and the place is packed around the clock. I recommend the Morning Glory breakfast burger - bacon, avocado, egg, salad and tarragon mayo - for those mornings when you feel a little seedy from too much pinot noir. Which happens a lot in Queenstown.

Amisfield Winery, 10 Lake Hayes Rd, Queenstown. www.amisfield.co.nz

Amisfield is about 10 minutes drive out of the main part of Queenstown, on the way to Arrowtown. (Which means that unfortunately someone has to volunteer to be the designated driver.) Their bistro is only open for lunch, and has a la carte options, but really you have to go with the "Trust the Chef" menu. It's NZ$70 a head for a glass of the Amisfield NV sparkling, six shared courses and dessert.

Yes, it did all taste as good as it looks. Spectacular value IMO, particularly as NZ$70 works out to only about AU$54. They also offer a good wine tasting option that allows you to try a few of their wines with your meal and still be able to drive home: you can choose three 50ml glasses for about NZ$10-15 if I remember rightly.

 

The Cow, Cow Lane, Queenstown.

The Cow boasts having an unchanged menu since they opened in 1976. You can kind of tell – the pizzas are a bit daggy. They’re like the pizzas I remember eating in Launceston when I was a kid in the 80s. Lots of toppings, lots of cheese. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, every now and again.

 

Motogrill, 62 Shotover St, Queenstown.

Michael from My Aching Head recommended Motogrill to me as one of the best places for coffee in Queenstown, and I think he’s right – certainly it was the best I had during my week in NZ. I went the first time for coffee, and then again later in the week for breakfast:

The french toast was fantastic. Evil, but fantastic. The scrambled eggs were pretty good too.

(Take note though – in this part of NZ, if you ask for a “latte”, you will get a coffee in a giant cup, not a small glass. I think Motogrill uses a double shot of espresso for theirs, so it’s still regular strength.)

 

Botswana Butchery, 17 Marine Parade, Queenstown.

Botswana Butchery was recommended to me by a few people, and turns out it is probably the trendiest restaurant in Queenstown - be sure to book if you want to have dinner here. We rocked up at about 8.30pm on a Friday night with no booking, and they had no tables; we were offered a seat at the bar, which we took, but the bar is quite high and not really suitable for knife-and-fork eating (not ideal considering their main specialty is grilled meat).

Anyway, given that our bar perch was right under the barman’s nose, I didn’t take pictures of the food. Sorry kids. None of it was that spectacular looking anyway – one steak looks much like any other, does it not? – but I do have to tell you that the french onion soup was ORGASMIC. Oh. My. God. Have never tasted one like it; I emailed the chef to beg for the recipe, but so far no response. Dammit. Looks like I’m going to have to make a trans-Tasman soup run.

The rest of the food was pretty good, but not a patch on the soup, frankly. Quite an older crowd here; I think all the other under-40s must have been at Fergburger.

 

Wine Tastes, 14 Beach St, Queenstown. http://www.winetastes.co.nz/

Wine Tastes is something of a cross between a wine bar and a bottle shop, specialising in Central Otago wines and offering 80 wines on tasting using Enomatic wine serving systems. You get a card that acts as your “bar tab”, and then you just pick the wine you want to try and swipe your card for a 25ml, 75ml or 150ml glass. It’s about NZ$2-5 per 25ml taste, depending on the wine.

I love the idea of this – 80 wines on tap! Sounds like wine lovers’ nirvana, right?

So why wasn’t it fun??  We did a few tastes each, but then looked at each other and said “let’s get the hell out of here”. We both found it really depressing. I don’t even really know why; I suspect that somehow the whole swipe-your-card, automated process takes all the romance out of it.  So we promptly skedaddled off to a bar that was more our style…

Eichardt’s, Marine Parade, Queenstown. http://www.eichardtshotel.co.nz/ Eichardt’s Private Hotel is right on the waterfront, and has a rather lovely bar with a view of the lake.  They make a mean negroni. (They also have a tapas menu but we didn’t eat there.)

Whew! I think that’s about it for Queenstown. Stay tuned for boozy adventures on the Central Otago wine trail…

In Soviet Russia, food cooks YOU! - Masterchef Northcote

Foodie Little Sis and my partner J like to have Grand Cook-Offs whenever she visits Melbourne. I also like them to have Grand Cook-Offs, because then I get to eat the proceedings.

There's always score-sheets, and usually there has to be a theme. (The last one was Dessert-Off, closely fought but won by J on the strength of his coconut lime pudding.) This time they decided that it had to be a national cuisine that neither had prior experience in cooking. Somehow they landed on a country that, let's face it, is not exactly known for its culinary magnificence: Russia.

Our judges: Maria (primary school teacher; reinstated to the judging panel only after promising not to be "too nice"); Stefan (German; known for being rather brutal in his judgements); KB (PhD geologist and expert eater); and yours truly. Each dish was to be judged out of 20, with points awarded for taste, presentation, authenticity and originality.

J did the table decorations:

and we had a communal (non-competitive) starter of smoked trout with creme fraiche, dill and cornichons:

Absolutely divine. In fact I plan to eat this again very soon. Give me a nice loaf of sourdough and a bit of this trout, and I'll be happy as larry any night of the week.

And now... the first competitive dishes. 

Foodie Little Sis's entree was a potato and fish soup with dill. She removed the fish from the bones and then made the fish stock from scratch, and poached the flesh in the fish broth.

The judges gave her high marks from authenticity - in particular from Stefan, the only one of us who'd actually been to Russia. "It's so bland! So boring! So RUSSIAN!" he announced. Marks for taste were not so high, as the broth had not been quite hot enough to fully cook the fish so there were some raw bits.

J's entree was Apple-Cinnamon Duck. Stefan commented that the dish's appearance reminded him of "an old poo [he] had seen in the park" - the chef was devastated. Reasonably high points were awarded for taste, but the recipe required the duck breasts to be boiled - why, Russia, why?? thought I.

Foodie Little Sis's main course, I have to say, was the dish of the night. A whole fillet of salmon was layered with sauteed onions and mushrooms, then wrapped in puff pastry; sliced to serve, each slice was drizzled with fresh dill and salmon caviar. Magnificent. Do ordinary Russians eat such a dish? We decided we were prepared to overlook it.

J's main course was "Kurnik", a traditonial Russian wedding dish: chicken pie with layers of mushrooms and pancakes; accompanied by Moldovian Potato Salad, packing nuclear gigapowers of garlic. The pie ranked well for authenticity - we all bought J's accompanying story of the wedding tradition of one pie being given to the groom and one to the bride... alas, it tasted like crapka. "The chicken tastes like it has been boiled", commented Stefan. "It has been boiled," replied J.

Foodie Little Sis's dessert was a traditional Easter recipe: Kulich, a fruited cake sort of like panettone, served with Pashka, a sort of cheesy fruited custard. Didn't get high points for presentation, but it tasted fabulous.

J's dessert was a traditional honey cake, served with a berry coulis and icecream. Everyone loved the presentation apart from me - I thought it looked like the cake had been stabbed and was bleeding all over the plate - but it didn't rank as highly for taste as Foodie Little Sis's kulich with pashka. I think it was a bit overcooked. (Side note: I turned the leftover honey cake into a rather spectacular bread and butter pudding two nights later, by slicing it up into a dish and baking it with a mixture of evaporated milk, eggs, sugar and sultanas. YUM.)

The final scores were very close... or they would have been, if Foodie Little Sis's main course of salmon pie hadn't completely wiped the floor with J's kurnik. All judges noted the inherent divergence of authenticity versus taste, as far as Russian cuisine was concerned! Judges agreed that perhaps next time the contestants should choose a theme that actually rewarded a little more culinary flair.

Dinner at Mezzo Bar and Grill, Melbourne CBD

Mezzo Bar & Grill. 35 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne 3000 http://www.mezzobar.com.au/

My little sister is a second-year apprentice chef in Hobart, and is possibly even more obsessed with food than I am. So when she makes plans to visit Melbourne, the phone conversation usually goes something like this:
"I've booked tickets over on the 28th of January. Can you pick me up from the airport, and can I stay at your place?"
"Uh, yeah, sure."
"OK, good. Now where are we going to eat?"

She always wants to go to wherever is new and exciting, so this visit I suggested Mezzo Bar and Grill - the brand-new incarnation of Oyster Little Bourke. Same owners, same staff, same location, but whole new menu and fitout. (There's a cute video of the transformation here.)

I never actually went to Oyster Little Bourke, but I gather it was a little more formal than Mezzo. The new menu is designed for sharing, so you choose from small dishes ("stuzzichini") and larger main-course-sized dishes ("tesori della cucina"), some of which are also available in extra-large-sized dishes for sharing amongst larger groups.

There were four of us - me, J, Foodie Little Sis, and Noush - so we went to town on the menu and ordered:

Ricotta-stuffed zucchini flowers, in a sort of tempura-ish batter. Delicious.

Tuna crudo on crostini with avocado and bottarga. (I had to Google "bottarga" just now - apparently it's salted dried fish roe.) The flavours here were lovely and fresh, but my crostini was a bit stale and soggy, like the dish had been assembled too long before being served. 

Scallop carpaccio with lemon verbena, citrus and pistachios. Oh, this was divine. I don't recall ever eating scallops uncooked before, and I can't imagine why not - such a delicate flavour and texture! If I could eat them prepared like this all the time, I'd never order cooked ones again.

(Sorry about the photo on this one, they turned the lights down.) This was the octopus "salami" with vin cotto and parmesan. Looked like they had pressed the octopus into a roll before cooking and then slicing it. Quite an interesting idea, and tasty, although I think I prefer the slow-cooked octopus at Cumulus.

Slow cooked pork belly, with silverbeet and licorice jus. Beautiful flavours; this was J's favourite dish, and he said it was better than Coda's. I thought Coda's was better, as my piece of pork had a slightly chewy rind and a little too much visible fat - I would have preferred to have a crispier rind and more of the fat rendered away. That's being really nitpicky though, it was still delicious.



Cavatelli with meatballs, broccoli, potato, and pecorino broth. Possibly this is the ultimate comfort food dish. Cavatelli are little nuggets of egg pasta, somewhere between rigatoni and gnocchi; I've never liked the stodginess of gnocchi, but these had just enough chewiness to avoid being stodgy. I can't wait to come back and eat this dish all to myself on a cold rainy Melbourne winter day.

The final dish: panfried stuffed baby calamari with capers, pickled radish, pumpkin seed and rocket pesto. There were also some kind of anchovy or sardine fillets strewn over the top. Hmm... this was probably my least favourite of all the dishes. The calamari were nice and tender, but I felt like there were a few too many competing strong flavours and it all tasted a bit too, well, fishy.



We're getting pretty full by this point. Did we have dessert? Well of course we did. Not only did we have dessert, we started with cheese.

The cheeses of the day were a washed rind and a parmesan - sorry, I forgot the names.
We also chose three sweets to share between the four of us:

The tiramisu was brought to the table in a large bowl, much as it would usually be made at home, and then our serving was scooped into a dish. I believe this is the best tiramisu I've eaten outside of Italy - and possibly also better than all the ones I ate in Italy too. I'm glad they didn't put the whole bowl of it in front of me, because I don't think I would have been able to stop myself.



Sicilian doughnuts with citrus cream (left), and the icecreams/gelati of the day. These were both perfectly nice dishes, but frankly all I could think about was the tiramisu. (Did I mention I liked the tiramisu?) I did like the cute presentation of the citrus cream in the mini preserving jar.

I should mention that the service throughout the meal was 100% spot on. Attentive, efficient, and knowledgeable, the staff were always right there when we needed them, and also not  there when we wanted to be left to enjoy our meal together. In fact the last time I've had service that good was at much more expensive venues like Attica or Royal Mail Hotel.

I'm keen to have a bit more of a crack at the wine list, they had a lot of very reasonably priced Italian wines (as well as locals).  Noush enjoyed a very pleasant cocktail called the "Henley" - Pimms, guava and mint.

The bill worked out to $100 a head, including drinks and tips. Considering we left feeling like we'd just eaten Christmas lunch, I thought this was fabulous value. I highly recommend Mezzo, and plan to visit again - in fact, I might just go there tomorrow night.