Friday, April 30, 2010

New Mexican in Grey Lynn


Grey Lynn has a new upmarket Mexican restaurant called Ahsi-Itzcalli, a name with some cultural significance but with a combination of letters somewhat further down on the memorability scale than if the owner had banged arbitrarily on his computer keyboard for ten seconds with a hard shell taco.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Review: Kermadec Fine Dining


It's funny how traditions start. When I first began dating my girlfriend I used to buy an Instant Kiwi for her at the end of each trip to the supermarket. We'd use any winnings to buy treats – a bag of mussels, a little sashimi snapper, a few leaves of smoked salmon – and before we knew it there was a new tradition, which I encourage you to follow in your own relationship: all Instant Kiwi winnings must immediately be reinvested in seafood.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Metro Top 50 announced

Metro has released its latest list of Auckland's Top 50 restaurants, always an excellent starting point for getting a handle on the city's big names. I don't know enough about restaurant/publishing politics to critique the way the list is put together, but the results looks pretty good to me. I've managed to wangle an invitation to the awards ceremony on Monday night, which I'm most excited about, but until the big winners in each of 15 categories are announced at that event, here are a few observations from the list:

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Last Tango in Auckland

I was saddened but unsurprised last week to learn of the closure of Mango Tango, a South American-style restaurant in Herne Bay which opened its doors last year with what must have seemed like a surefire gimmick: “Pay what you think the meal is worth!”

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Pictures from SIDART tasting

Some of my more glamorous friends, acquaintances and admirees gathered at SIDART in Ponsonby last night for an inaugural AFB wine tasting with in-house sommelier Marie Colosimo. We tried eight different wines, comparing New Zealand and French versions of bubbly, sauvignon blanc, pinot noir and gewurztraminer, the sauv and the pinot being accompanied by canapes created by the multi award winning Sid Sahrawat in the kitchen. I know. You sort of had to be there and, if you weren't, below are some pictures of all the fun we had.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

One More Indian

Some time ago I offered a list of three good Indian vegetarian restaurants in Auckland. Since then I've discovered Bikanervala in Mt Roskill, which I have now visited four times without spotting another white person. It's the sort of cultural island which makes cities like London so cool to eat in and explore, and based on my most recent Google Analytics report, I can safely share its location here without unduly endangering it with gentrification.

Kokako – we'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow

God bless Kokako Cafe for offering a good organic option in the culinary wasteland that is Newmarket. Kokako's coffee is excellent and the service is fun. The food is good too, although I'd like to suggest a couple of changes, and these apply to other cafes as well:

AFB's First Tasting Event


I've been working hard over the past few weeks, organising my first Auckland Food Blog event, a wine tasting evening next week at SIDART restaurant. I dined there recently, and was so taken with the passion and knowledge of sommelier Marie Colosimo that I wanted to introduce her to a few of the people that read this blog.