Review: Havana

It was birthday a couple of months back (ok, so I started this post before I went away on holiday). My parents offered to treat us to dinner and I chose Havana, a bit of an institution in Wellington. It's situated inside two historic and colourful workingmen's cottages just off vibrant Cuba Street in the city. It's a great place for cocktails and music but despite having whiled away many an evening in the dimly lit garden terrace over drinks and bar snacks, I've never eaten in the restaurant.

We arrived early, as they don't take bookings for small groups on Friday and Saturday night, and the restaurant is quite small. We were seated straight away and even moved to a slightly bigger table when we requested it. It was dark, but a nice, cosy atmosphere which hummed as it filled up with more people. Unfortunately dark also means terrible lighting for mobile phone photos.

It's a tapas style menu so we ordered several things to share - four each of the smaller and bigger tapas and a couple of sides, which was plenty for the four of us...we may have also had dessert, just to tip us right over the edge.

Crisp haloumi on grilled bread

I won't subject you to everything we ate, to save your keyboard from drool but instead give you my favourite choices of the night. Of the smaller tapas, the crisp haloumi with sweet red pepper relish and rosemary oil on grilled bread and the slow roasted crispy chicken wings with a coriander and green chilli chutney were top choices. Who doesn't love haloumi, and the sweetness of the relish went so well with it. I don't normally go for chicken wings, as they are often a bit too much hard work for not much reward, but the coriander and green chilli chutney was off the hook - not very spicy, and really fresh tasting - a bit like a salsa verde.

Chicken pie

Of the larger tapas, the pan fried fish with bouillabaisse sauce, croutes and rouille was excellent - the fish was cooked beautifully. The chicken pie with fino sherry, house puff pastry and herbed baby carrots was comfort food at its best and special mention goes to the char grilled aged beef fillet skewers with a smokey red pepper and bay marinade, which were potentially the most tender beef skewers I have ever had.

For dessert, we managed to fit in the apple, feijoa and peanut butter crumble with a lemon bay cream. This was enjoyable, but it wasn't really anything special. I really like peanut butter and crumble, but just not together - the peanut butter flavour just didn't work with the fruit as well as I'd expected.

I washed it all down with a sloe gin fizz to start, followed by a glass each of the Pretty Paddock Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and the Explorer Central Otago Pinot Noir. Pretty safe choices, I know.

The food was delicious, the atmosphere warm and intimate and I loved the tapas style of eating - a nice way to enjoy a family dinner. I'd love to go back, but it was fairly pricey so it's definitely a place to be saved for a special occasion - or maybe just next time mum and dad are paying!

Apple, feijoa and peanut butter crumble

Havana Bar
32a-34 Wigan St
Te Aro
Wellington, New Zealand

Travel Bites - Las Vegas and San Francisco

Worth its weight in gold....literally

After the serene and relaxing shores of Bucerias, we flew to the bright lights and intensity of Vegas. And it was hot hot hot. Like 43 degrees hot. Now you may think that the food in Vegas is nothing to write home about....and you would be correct. Well, almost. The thing in Vegas is buffet. Every casino/hotel has one and they are actually pretty good value for money. If you're anything like me, in many ways the buffet is the perfect place to eat - you get to try a little bit of everything, and the chances that you will go away disappointed are slim because they pretty much have everything you could possibly feel like eating. We sampled the buffet at the Mirage and MGM. The former was the winner by a smidge because they had hot AND cold crab legs and I welcomed the huge salad bars and sushi at this point of the trip. They also really know how to make excellent cold, refreshing lemon alcoholic beverages in Vegas; however given that they cost about US$16 each, you may not ever get drunk - as I discovered the day I went to the Caesar's Palace pool for the day and only took $20. Rookie mistake. We also had White Castle because Harold and Kumar. And it was terrible. I mean, I know Harold and Kumar were really stoned but they made out like the tiny burgers were the most delicious thing ever, and the meat was potentially the worst quality I've ever eaten in a burger. There was a huge queue too, so either other people were under the same impression we were, or under the same influence Harold and Kumar were.

Just. Don't

After a very hot five days in Vegas - which also included a visit to the Grand Canyon, where multiple squirrels tried to horn in our packed lunches - we flew to our final stop, San Franciso. Before we ventured into the city however, we picked up our flash as Cadillac hire car and drove to Yosemite National Park, which is a very special and beautiful place. In the 24 hours we were there we didn't really eat anything of note but we did eat inside a big cafeteria that reminded us of being at school camp. And we were intent on going to In-N-Out Burger on the drive back - popular with the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Julia Child, would you believe - but every one we passed was on the other side of the freeway and the fear of becoming lost was too great.

Once we were in San Francisco, we were pretty stoked to be in the land of more regular food and pretty decent coffee again, which we hadn't experienced since our first stop in New York. For lunch on our first day we headed straight for La Taqueria for a Mission burrito. This is the same place I sought out on my first trip to San Francisco, six years ago - and it was just as good as I remembered. Now listen - get the super pork burrito, ok? Ok. And get spicy.There's no rice in there, so it's just a concentrated wrap of all the best bits. You honesty will probably never have a burrito as good as this, just trust me on this one.

To end our amazing four week long trip, we went to Foreign Cinema for dinner. Here, as you enjoy your 'Californian-Mediterranean' influenced food, they screen a film against the wall in the covered courtyard. It's a cool idea, and the setting was lovely, but it was still light so we couldn't really see the film - which was Magnolia, in case you wanted to know- and there was no sound. They had drive-in speakers around the edge but I couldn't work out if they were for realsies or just for show. Anyway, the food was pretty nice and beautifully presented. I had seafood, as San Francisco is known for; a brodetto (which I totally had to Google - it's soup). It was fresh and delicious, albeit a little undercooked, but they sorted that out for me pretty quick. Although we were decidedly under dressed for such a fancy place, we couldn't have cared less, and we ate and drank - and spent - away the final night of our holiday. We headed for home the following day a little fatter, a little happier and thoroughly satisfied.

Seafood brodetto of cod, prawn and scallops, tomato broth,
Romano beans, fennel, fingerlings and toast

Travel Bites - New Orleans and Bucerias, Mexico

Frozen Irish coffee from Molly's on the Market

Picking up where we left off, in the deep south. New Orleans (Nawlins to the locals) is all about the creole influence, so it’s a bit of a melting pot (sometimes literally) of French, Spanish and African cusine, as well as a few others thrown in for good measure. Gumbo is a traditional choice and I had this, as well as some other local specialities when we went to Coop’s Place. This place is pretty much the definition of ‘dive’ but the food is what I imagine to be fairly accurate down-home cooking. I had the tasting plate with a cup of seafood gumbo, shrimp creole, Cajun fried rice, red beans and rice with sausage, and rabbit and sausage jambalya; and all this for US$13, you can’t really go wrong. Napoleon House is also worth a look. The building itself is 200 years old and was inhabited by Nicolas Girod, the mayor of the city in the early 1800s. In 1821 he offered his house to Napoleon as refuge during his excile. He didn't take him up on his offer, but the name endured and the walls are covered with every kind of portrait of Napoleon. I had a Pimms cup followed by a shrimp remoulade stuffed avocado - which was so creamy and delicious. The boy had the muffuletta, which sounds like some sort of couch to me, but is in fact a sandwich with salami, ham, mortadella, mozzarella, provolone and olives. It's also a local delicacy and there are any number of places around New Orleans that claim to have the best one.

Honourable mention has to go to frozen Irish coffees at Molly’s at the Market. It was in the high 30s while we were there, with very high humidity, so whilst walking around and checking out the sights, you needed something cool and refreshing to imbibe almost every few metres. You can get take-out, alcoholic drinks everywhere and at any time of day, but this has to be one of the best. A boozy, creamy coffee slushy - so good. Oh and don't miss beignets at Cafe du Monde. These crispy, fried pastries are coated in so much powdered sugar that the people who work there must just seep it out of their pores. It's always busy in there so get them at the takeaway window and eat them elsewhere - like on the bus to do a swamp tour, like we did.

Fish tacos at Chilly Willy's

 After Memphis and New Orleans we were ready for a break from all the fried foods, so Bucerias in Mexico was a welcome relief. We stayed directly across from the beach so a lot of our meals were at the many restaurants right by the water with tables in the sand. We ate a lot of fish tacos, but the best dinner was at Armando’s Place. It was a few blocks back from the beach, and in the middle of what seemed to be an entirely residential neighbourhood. We got a plate of fresh grilled mahi mahi with sides including vegetables (hooray!). It was some of the freshest fish I've had in a while, and whilst it was a bit more pricey than most of our other meals (NZ$20), it was well worth it. We spent a day in Sayulita, a small hippy beach town not far from Bucerias. After quite a bit of searching, we managed to locate Chilly Willy's a place that came highly recommended. It was essentially a road side shack, with a senora cooking out the back and no English spoken - damn they were good fish tacos. We had some agua fresca here, a drink we took a bit of a gamble on as we had no idea what it was when we ordered it. It had a sort of sweet but bitter taste and had weird lumps
in it. I looked it up later and worked out it was made from tamarind pod - not bugs as we were slightly concerned it might have been. I also had a pretty good seafood plate at a little beach spot back in Bucerias, Mar y Sol. And of course you can't go past a bueno cerveza for about NZ$4, with your toes in the sand and a beautiful ocean view.

Seafood at Mar Y Sol

Travel Bites - New York and Memphis

I interrupt your regular scheduled programme of delicious recipes to bring you the highlights of my recent trip to the US of A and, briefly, Mexico. You may have been wondering where my usual musings on delectable dinners and beautiful brunches has been for the last few weeks….or perhaps you haven’t noticed. Either way, I'm back, and thanks to jet lag, I am up early and writing this especially for you.

Travel and food have always gone hand in hand for me – wherever I go, I want to know what the local speciality is and where I can eat it. And let’s face it, eating is my favourite hobby, so I always indulge when I'm on holiday. We spent the last 4 weeks going from city to city in the States, from the east coast of the US to the west coast, with a quick stop in Mexico. A lot of snacks were consumed during this time, so I am just going to bring you a few of the highlights, in two parts. I apologise in advance for some of the not-so-great quality mobile phone photos.

Dessert at ABC Kitchen

Our first stop was New York, home of the hot dog and pizza. Whilst we sampled these of course (on the way to the Statue of Liberty and right before a Broadway show respectively, just in case you needed that titbit of information), we wanted to branch out a bit further while visiting the city that has tens of thousands of restaurants and just about every kind of food you can imagine. One of my favourite meals was at a little place near our Air BNB accommodation in the East Village, San Marzano. They had incredibly cheap pasta, by New York standards - for $9, you choose the type of pasta you like and then the sauce. I chose pappardelle with broccoli rabe and sausage – so simple yet so delicious. We also treated ourselves to­­ a nice dinner and I managed to get us a 5pm booking at ABC Restaurant, which focuses on seasonal and locally sourced food. We had some really good pretzel dusted calamari and I had the wild striped bass but the best of our meal here was probably the dessert – seasonal doughnuts and a sundae with salted caramel ice cream, candied peanuts and popcorn, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. A special shout out to Third Rail Coffee which served coffee pretty damn close to the standard we're used to – our saviours! – and The Brazen Fox who had Ace Pineapple Cider on tap – so refreshing after a hot day of sightseeing (being on holiday is hard, ok).

 

Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken - it may
not look like much, but it was the best.

Our next stop was Memphis where southern hospitality is well and truly alive and kicking. The specialities here are po’boys, catfish, fried chicken and barbecue. Oh I was all over it. Off the plane, we picked up our hire car and drove straight to Soul Fish Café where I had a catfish po’boy - boom! It was tasty, but I regretted not getting the Cajun fish instead of the battered cat fish. The next day we visited the famous Gus’s Fried Chicken for lunch, and this was probably the food highlight for me (Graceland was the best thing we did, in case you’re interested). We had to wait for a table for about half an hour but it was well worth it for the oh so crispy, slightly spicy, fresh fried chicken. Don’t even worry about the sides - more room for chicken - and definitely get a 3 piece. Central BBQ in Memphis also delivered on our last day in Memphis, with it’s sweet and sticky barbecue. I had the pork sandwich which had tender pulled pork inside a soft and slightly sweet bun and creamy coleslaw with a bit of a kick. After I finished, I could totally have done it all over again in a heart beat (beat? Maybe ‘attack’ is a better choice of word).

Pork sandwich with a side of potato salad

Tune in next time for some creole cookin' down in New Orleans and fish, fish and more fish in Bucerias, Mexico.

Review: Poquito

I stumbled across this great little cafe and bar in Wellington when I had about half an hour between the gym and a hair appointment (which sounds so 'ladies who lunch', but it was a Saturday, ok). I was really hungry and I was trying to find something really yummy, but also quick - and a chicken salad sandwich just wasn't going to cut it.

Poquito is Spanish for 'a little bit' and that's pretty much just what I was looking for. On their website they say they are Wellington's best kept secret, and I am inclined to agree. They have a small brunch menu, as well as tapas, cocktails, other alcoholic drinks and coffee. The place is pretty small (sensing the theme here?) but there was a table just by the door which I grabbed. It opens up to some more tables up the back, but it's definitely got an intimate, cosy vibe.

I ordered the Spanish baked egg, with tomato, black bean and chorizo. The woman who served me was lovely and I only waited for about 10 minutes for my food - the apology for the wait when she brought it to me was completely unnecessary. The baked eggs were perfect - it was exactly what I felt like, and just the right size - and at $12.50, frankly, a bargain. Simple, uncomplicated but delicious. They weren't stingy on the chorizo, which is always a bonus, and the sprinkling of toasted almonds on the top was surprisingly on the money and added a really nice texture. The bread was fresh and lightly toasted, but not too hard.

I think this place has got a great thing going on - nice, simple menus with a few things so they can focus on doing them really well. I feel like they would be able to make the shift from brunch during the day, to tapas and cocktails in the evening with ease, providing a nice atmosphere no matter the time of day. I just had a peek at their Twitter, and it seems they have live music there some evenings as well. I'm looking forward to sampling some vino tinto and diablos a caballo here one night very soon.

Poquito
11 Tory St
Wellington, New Zealand

Review: Muse on Allen

Muse on Allen is an award winning, sort-of fine dining restaurant. I don't know if it necessarily defines itself as fine dining, but it has the sort of refined presentation and flavours I associate with fine dining. Plus, at one point we had eight glasses on our table - if that's not fancy, I don't know what is.

My boyfriend treated me to a meal to say thanks for helping him out with his recent event, A Vinyl Affair, which was pretty lovely of him. We went early on a Friday evening, at 6pm, as we were off to see a Fringe play at 7.30pm. We were seated on the mezzanine floor, at a table by the window, which would've been nicer if there wasn't a whole lot of scaffolding on the outside of the building, but hey, I won't hold it against them.

I started with a glass of crisp Bortolomiol Prosecco Superiore NV and then an entrée of seared large Atlantic sea scallops, ham hock risotto, confit squid, parmesan and parsley. The scallops were perfectly cooked and the creamy risotto wasn't too heavy - I'm not a huge risotto fan - and the saltiness of the ham with the nutty parmesan was delicious. The serving was bigger than expected too, which is always a bonus. My boyfriend had the free range chicken liver pate, port jelly, onion and balsamic and mini brioche, which I of course had a try of. It was rich but very moreish. He can't eat shellfish, so he didn't get to sample mine - not fair, I know. I also forgot to take a photo of my entrée, mostly because I was pretty hungry.

I ordered a glass of Gladstone 2012 Martinborough Sauvignon Blanc, which was very nice. I'm usually a Marlborough-all-the-way kind of Sauvignon Blanc gal, so I'll remember this excellent selection when I'm looking for a bit of a spesh bottle. This was quickly followed by my main, the pan fried market fish - gurnard - chorizo and crab ravioli, carrot and sage. This was really fantastic, particularly the ravioli which was potentially the best ravioli I've ever had - crab and chorizo is an inspired combination. The dish had sage foam which was very Masterchef. My boyfriend chose crispy skin chicken breast, polenta, corn, smoked pistachio and chicken jus, which was also pretty tasty but to be honest, I was too busy obsessing over the ravioli to take much notice of what he was having. We also had some truffled potato roasties on the side, which were probably unnecessary as the portion sizes were fine, and roasted potatoes were a bit heavy.

For dessert we shared the Whittaker's chocolate marquise, kaffir lime, pineapple, coconut ice-cream and chilli. The marquise was a bit like a cross between a rich chocolate cake and a mousse and it was decadent and amazing. The little blobs of the tart lime gel and the chewiness of the dried pineapple were perfect with the richness of the chocolate, and the coconut ice-cream tied it all together really well.

Throughout our meal, the service was attentive but not too intrusive, the courses were well timed and the waitress reminded us what was in each dish as when she brought it to the table. The atmosphere was quiet and cosy and there were mostly other couples dining,

I would definitely recommend Muse if you want to treat yourself to a beautiful dining experience but not pay super crazy prices - entrées are $19-$22, mains are $36-38 and desserts are $18-$20, which I think is pretty reasonable for the quality of food. I'll let you in on a little secret too - it's in the Entertainment Book too! Which is great if going out for a super fancy dinner isn't usually in your budget.

They've just changed the menu too - but don't worry, the ravioli and the marquise are still on there - whew!

Muse on Allen
16 Allen Street
Wellington, New Zealand