Russell the Mussel Man

Farmers' markets were created with two purposes in mind: firstly, to give local producers a forum for trading their wares without incurring the crippling overhead costs of setting up a retail business; secondly, to give middle class couples something to do together on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

At last, Salta! (not a particularly relevant title, but palindromes never are)

Salta in Three Lamps is the best cafe in Ponsonby. Well, certainly Ponsonby North, being the general area we're willing to walk to from work at number 239. If the name Salta doesn't ring a bell, maybe Atlas will – that was what it used to be called until, from what I can work out, there was some unpleasantness with the Atlas coffee people and the cafe was forced to anagrammatise.

World Famous in Avon-da-lay

Avondale Market is the most interesting food market in Auckland, and we'll have plenty of opportunities to find out why on this blog in the future. We went there today, and stuffed our face on good Asian food, and I got recognised by the owner of a stall which sold chicken larb and mudfish paste and various other Thai/Laotian specialties.

"Ah!," he exclaimed in broken English, "I've been waiting for you!"

Love you Bong time

The nineties are over, and it's no longer enough for Thai food to taste hot and a bit limey. It needs to be good these days, and most of it isn't. My girlfriend and I recently sent an entire order from Star Thai in Three Lamps down my waste disposal it was so terrible, and after bad meals at Erawhan Herne Bay and some other place on Ponsonby Road next to Rocco I was ready to give up on the genre.

Dappled pork and apple

My buddy Chris says he's discovered a new trick at restaurants: telling the maitre d' which table you want. He tried it at Takapuna Beach Cafe today and it worked pretty good, although once you get to a certain class of place, um, internationally, they might have reservations (in both senses). Chris reckons our table outside in the combined sun/shade was 40% better than anything we would have been given by chance. Further, he thinks that wait staff intentionally seat everyone in the same area of the restaurant so that they have less far to walk during their shift. I'm not so sure about that one.

Pay peanuts, get macchi's

My friend Sandon believes that, in general, the more a cup of espresso costs, the worse it will taste. I say 'in general', although he's not really the sort of person to qualify wide sweeping statements like this – the qualifier he would have used is probably 'without exception, ever'. Anyway, he formed this opinion in Wellington where, I guess, a low priced coffee indicates that the person who runs the cafe has integrity, which will translate into the way they use their espresso machine. A long black at Deluxe on Kent Terrace will still, I believe, cost you $2.50 and might be the best in the country.