Christmas with Friends

For me, Christmas is the time of year when the distance to loved ones seems the greatest.   Family overseas, departed loved ones, friends around the globe - we all seem to have those we are thinking about in an extra special way during this silly season.  
Now seems like a good time then, to count the blessing of family and special friends who we do spend time with in NZ - they are a part of the fabric of our lives, those we laugh with throughout the year and those who we want to spend time clinking glasses with during this time of festive cheer. One such group of friends were fortunate enough to congregate at Jo and Elle's for a spectacular annual Christmas dinner just recently. This is a day of pure indulgence: Elle and Jo's exceptionally good cooking, far too much good wine and increasingly entertaining company makes this quite the affair.

This year was exceptional, with a raft of delicious nibbles and then this 8 course menu:

• Rumaki (liver and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon and grilled on the bbq)
• Chilled Avocado soup with garlic bbq prawns
• Basil panacotta with tomato sorbet
• Elle's mom's Alabama crabcakes
• Bbq lamb with an amazing salsa verde
• Vietnamese shaking beef on a bed of greens
• Chocolate truffle cake
• and the grand finale of the most sensational raspberry mouse

And yes, this is restaurant quality food - Elle painstakingly plans the menu weeks in advance and generously puts an amazing combination together.  Eating around their large communal family sized table, this is a long, 8 hour affair.  Food is matched with wines that if you added up, would put this line up in the stratespheric price range if you actually managed to find them on a restaurant wine list, but which have been carefully nurtured in people's cellars just waiting for a special occasion like this to be taken out. It is a real treat to say the least!

In the spirit of Christmas cheer, I have asked a few friends to 'toast' their favourite wines from this past year.  Here's what they came up with:

John

2006 Seresin Reserve Chardonnay

2009 Matua Valley single vineyard grenache

Shelly

2010 Villa Maria Keltern chardonnay  (Shelly is the world's biggest Chardy fan, so trust her on this one!)

Gabor

2009 Trinity Hills The Gimblett, Gimblett Gravels bordeaux blend

Oloroso sherry lustau 1/58

Shaw & Smith Chardonnay verticle 2006, 07, and 08

Curt

1988 French Chateau Sudierault Sauternes, carefully cultivated in his cellar and absolutely perfect.

2007 Ramey Hyde Vinyard Napa Chardonnay

Elle

2006 Church Road Tom Chardonnay

2005 Schoffitt gewürztraminer

2002 Te Motu Cabernet

Jo

Apsley Gorge Chardonnay from Tasmania (and many other wines from their recent memorable trip to Tasmania!)

Stoneyridge Larose barrel pressings tasted at labnight at Pinot Plus 

Anne

Dunnolly Pinot Noir during a trip to Waipara - like nothing she's had beforehand

Mark

1988 John Riddoch Coonawara Cabernet (purchased from a cellar in Penola, Coonawara - this was definitely yummy and a perfect example of why you want to save something good for a number of years!)

1998 Leasingham Classic Clare Sparkling Shiraz

1998 Esk Valley Terraces

Cath

2004 Kerpen WS Auslese

1998 (?) Jim Barry The Armagh (another from Curt's cellar!)

2005 Felton Road Block 1 Riesling

Al

1988 John Riddoch Coonawara Cabernet (yes, a second mention) 

1988 French Chateau Sudierault Sauternes (I could add this to my list too)

1999 Grant Burge Meshach Barossa Shiraz

2004 Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier

Mine:

2008 Coriole The Lloyde Shiraz - tasted at my favourite vinyard in McLaren Vale

2010 Jasper Hill Grenache - from yet another special cellar door tasting

2002 Providence Merlot Cabernet Franc Malbec from Matakana - a treat from Sakiko at last Lab Nite

1988 Alsace Kientzler Gewurtz from Curt's cellar - the smile on Curt's face showed the pure joy a wine collector experiences when saving something for that long and it tasting absolutely perfect.  What a real treat.

Sophie:

And last, a special toast to Sophie, that special pooch we lost earlier this year - we opened our last bottle of 1997 Montrose Mudgee Black Shiraz to toast the wonderful time we had with her (1997 was the year she was born and Montrose Black Shiraz was the first case of wine I ever bought).

Merry Christmas to the many people we love.

MooChowChow

MooChowChow is one of my favourite Ponsonby Restaurants.  This is a recent (within the last year) addition to the local scene.  It's a very cool Thai Restaurant which I've been to 3 times in the space of a month. Just the name is enough to make it worth checking out, surely?!  It's perfectly Ponsonby as far as urban eateries goes so I decided it was probably a blogworthy location for all Auckland food lovers. We even took my parents here while they were over from Canada and it did not disappoint.

My favourite waiter

I had a look at Mehran's Dineout profile, but looks like he missed this one so I'll try to do it justice.  (Mehran for those who don't know is my crazy friend from Chicago who inspired me to get blogging - he's a food and wine lover from Chicago, who was here for only about 8 months and did 61 restaurant reviews!  Check out his rather colourful Auckland dining experiences on Dineout if you're feeling adventurous:  Mehran's Dine Out Reviews for Auckland)

As for MooChowChow, its Thai with a modern twist.  The chef did a stint at Longrains in Sydney, which makes sense, given the non traditional Thai style tapas coming out of the kitchen. There's no green curry chicken or pad thai here, just lots of interesting little dishes to share. And get this, the food menu is less than a page and the drink list is 7 pages! 



Caramalised Pork Hock and Chilli Vinegar



Unlike Mehran, I didn't ask the waiter his name, but he was really good all 3 times.  Funny, flirty, and good at making recommendations on the dishes - mostly he pulled faces at some of the more average dishes and pushed us toward the more interesting ones - good man.  My favourite dishes would have to be the 'Caramalised Pork Hock and Chilli Vinegar' and the 'Grilled Beef Short Rib in a rich red peanut curry'.  Yummy yummo - do I really need to share?! Both were melt in your mouth with a punchy asian salad on the side. All was matched with a nice Alsace Pinot Gris (or a Pingpong long for Jo!).



Beef Short Rib - Sensational!





Lots of empty plates



Everything was great and although the buzz and atmosphere could be mistaken for a Thai night market, it's pure Ponsonby.  Plenty of beautiful people, relaxed seating, stools around big shared tables and the back of the restaurant is basically a temporary structure that's painted in my favourite fushia colour.

Definitely give this place a go, especially if there's a group of you so you can try a lot more of the dishes!



happy patrons







A good life guide to Melbourne

As a traveller, I'm not usually one that spends an entire holiday based in a city so I never thought I'd enjoy spending 4 days in Melbourne as much as I did!

From inside National Gallery in Victoria

We went over recently with Mark and Cath and caught up with some good friends while we were over, really just to squeeze a last trip in for the year on a Jetstar 'deal'.

Melbourne to me is a food mecca, a cultural and artistic melting pot, (even the grafitti is great) a shoppers paradise and of course its surrounded by a number of fabulous wine regions, so its no surprise I guess that we had such a good time. 

Melbourne 'grafitti'

We stayed at a little boutique hotel in the city centre called The Lindrum which was perfect. We could walk pretty much everywhere in the city from there. The river was literally just out the door and this is a city that has really made use of its river and outdoor spaces.

Trams in Melbourne

I'd highly recommend a long weekend in this city and if you should find yourself in Melbourne, here are some things to check out.

Food

Melbourne was seriously a food pilgramige.  I either have recipes or cookbooks from most of the places we went to!

Corn at Mamasita

1.  Mamasita for lunch on Collins St. The quirkiest little Mexican place serving modern takes on some classics.  We arrived there at about 11.55 for a 12pm opening and there was already a queue of people!  Apparently at night, people queue all the way up the long stair case and down the road.

They do Mexican corn just the way I like, with Chipotle Mayo, a dusting of spice, some cheese and a wedge of lime, and the little tostaditas and quesadillas are fab.  All washed down with a decent margarita and I almost got transported to Mexico.

Grafitti - Movida style!

2. Movida for dinner.  Spectacular.  Simple, blow you away tapas.

 We had the 10 course degustation as there were 6 of us.  The first course was anchovy and tomato sorbet on a crostini (I don't even like anchovies!) and the last course was rabbit and in between were a number of seafood and meat tapas that went well with extremely good company, wine and atmosphere. 



Huevos flamenco at Lorca



3. Lorca for breakfast.  This is a little Spanish restaurant down one of the many interconnected alleyways in the city.  Perfect for people watching and great bistro food.  Al had huevos flamenco and I had iberico cheese and sliced serrano ham on sourdough rubbed with garlic and tomato and drizzled with olive oil.  Why can't someone serve this in Auckland!?! I'd be there tomorrow.

4. Spice Temple for dinner.  I love Neil Perry from Rockpool and this is one of his Asian inspired restaurants.  Holy dynamite. We did the 10 course banquet and some of the dishes like the bang bang chicken were blow your socks off spicy (even my equally heat loving friend Jo would have found this on the hot side!) but oh so tasty and oh so creative.



Al Stu and Mark tucking in to real food



Wine

We actually didn't do that much wine touring to be honest, but we went to some Fabulous wineries in the area.  Thanks to our good friend Stu, we had a ride through the Melbourne surrounds. He doesn't like red wine as it turns out, but we are sure working on him. (Given he lives in the home of some of the world's best reds it doesn't seem right!)  Probably the biggest wine buzz was seeing Adam and Liss's purpose built wine cellar which they've dug into the ground under the renovation they're working on!

Here are some I'd definitely recommend checking out:

Craiglee with Pat Carmody

1. Craiglee, Sunbury.  The Craiglee Sunbury Shiraz is a Langton's top Australian wine, so we were expecting a pretty flash cellar door but this truly was one of the most unassuming wineries I think we have been to.  Dilapidated entrance, parking in a sheep paddock, walk down a long overgrown path, and then...wine mecca.  A wine shed build in the 1860's and the winemaker Pat Carmody who is passionate about his wines, and not what other people think.  Tastings here are 'by appointment only' or I think he opens on a Sunday.



 2. Jasper Hill, Heathcote.  Another wine icon, Ron Laughton from Jasper Hill is the self professed pioneer of the Heathcote wine industry and the soils or 'terroir' is as good as it gets for good Shiraz.  We spent 2.5 hours here and Ron not only opened his Grenache, Georgia's Paddock and Emily's Paddock Shiraz, he also pulled a few back vintages (including '98 and '00) from his cellar.  A good time was had by all! Another 'by appointment only' tasting.

The crew with Ron from Jasper Hill

3. Ten Minutes by Tractor, Mornington Penninsula.  We had this at the last lab night dinner and their Pinot Noir is sensational

Al and Stu, 10 minutes by tractor

4. Red Hill Estate, Mornington Penninsula. This has got to be the most scenic winery in Victoria with a stunning view of the harbour and some spectacular 5 star cool climate Shiraz and Chardonnay

Other





• Drinks at the Supper Club - the coolest art deco place which also has a garden bar on the top floor.
• Went to the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) and saw a few interesting Aboriginal art exhibitions, my favourite of which was Living Waters. 
• Took a free tram ride around the city circumferance

Love the Grafitti!

• Caught up with our great friends, Adam, Liss, and Stu
• Went to St Kilda for brunch and the Street Market
• Went shopping at Zara and David Jones
• Lots of walking along the waterfront and Southbank



• 

Cool Art at NGV




The cool art deco window at Supper Club

 



Melbourne's Southbank at dusk



Cinnamon and Hazelnut Meringues

A number of cafes I've been to lately are serving these giant, fluffy coloured and flavoured meringues as cabinet food, so, the other day when I was browsing through a recently acquired cookbook, Ottolenghi The Cookbook,  I came upon the most interesting recipe for meringues and I decided to give it a go.

What I found intriguing about this recipe was that the egg whites are heated up.  Hmmmm... I had images of scrambled egg going through my mind.  Apparently this is called the Swiss Method which involves dissolving brown sugar and egg whites in a bowl over simmering water so they mix properly.  Well, it actually worked!

As I've mentioned previously, I have an abundance of cookbooks.  I can't help myself - the more pictures and the more unique the recipes the better!  Some books I haven't cooked a single recipe from, but I have gotten inspiration from the pictures or the way ingredients are used and adapted these into my own recipes.  Yotam Ottolenghi is definitely a favourite source of inspiration, his cookbooks are beautiful, and I can loose myself in the creativity of the recipes. (and I've actually tried a few of his recipes!) Ottolenghi is a UK based cook with middle eastern, mediterranean influences to his cooking, but all with a modern, light twist.  He started a cafe with Sami Tamimi in Notting Hill, with whom he co-authored this book and also wrote a more recent cookbook called Plenty which is equally mesmerising.  They have a website with blog and recipes as well, which for those who haven't come across him before, here's the link: http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/

Give this recipe a try if you ever have some spare egg whites around - I will definitely try this again and I had a very happy husband when these came out of the oven!

__________________

Cinnamon and hazelnut meringues.

• 200g egg whites (about 7)
• 260g Caster sugar
• 140g dark brown muscovado sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 30g unskinned hazelnuts, roughly chopped

(I only had 4 egg whites, but I weighed them on the kitchen scale and applied the ratio to the rest of the ingredients which worked well.)

1. Preheat oven to 110C.
2. Place the egg whites and both sugars in a heatproof bowl and put over lightly simmering water, making sure it doesn't actually touch the water. Stir occasionally until the sugars have dissolved into the whites (the recipe suggest 10min and 40C but this only took about 5 min for me. Obviously if it looks like a scramble is imminent, I would suggest taking this off the heat sooner rather than later!)
3. Pour into the bowl of an electric mixer (you really need a free standing one for this - handheld is going to take forever) and whip for about 8 minutes.  When ready, it should be firm and glossy and keep its shape when you lift a bit with a spoon.
4. Sprinkle the cinnamon over the meringue mix and fold in gently.
5. Line a baking tray (or 2) with baking paper and using 2 spoons, scoop a generous amount of the mixture (the size of a medium apple) with one and use the other to scrape this onto the tray (leave plenty of room between the meringues for them to expand in the oven) and sprinkle with chopped nuts. 
6. Place in the preheated oven and for anything from 1 1/4 - 2 hours, (I left them in for about 1 1/2 hours).  The meringues should be nice and dry underneath and still a little soft in the centre.
7. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.  Stored in a dry place, but not the fridge.

Adapted from Ottolenghi The Cookbook

Tis the season for wine....

Only 6 weeks until Christmas - the silly season has officially started again with Christmas parties, birthday parties (for some reason there are a lot in Dec-Jan), and then there's that funny phenomenon of needing to catch up with people before the end of the year.

This last week I put myself on the 'wine' line, trying out the best of the season.  I've been to a Champagne tasting, First Glass on Wednesday, an Ascension new release tasting, and lab night last Sunday. 

Here are some of the wine highlights from this week, which are incidentally all whites, but that's probably because summer is coming:

1. Cuisine top ten Champagne -
-Taittinger Les Folies de la Marquetterie NV.  My favourite last year was also the Tattinger, so not much of a surprise, but this single vinyard champagne was exquisite with plenty of silky bubbles, slight citrus and yeast, and a long lingering finish. Yum.  This is the special ocassion wine for Christmas.
-Piper NV was also impressive this year.  This is slightly lower in price, but hits the right marks.  It was generous and yeasty in the right ways and showed better than the Veuve or the Moet on the night, though these never disappoint either.

2. First Glass 12 Different Varieties
-Villa Maria 2010 Ihumatao Chardonnay from Auckland.  Villa's Ihumatao and Keltern Chardonnays are consistently among my favourite NZ Chardonnays.  It is best summed up in the First Glass newsletter: Mouthfilling, beautifully balanced and quite simply delicious.
Incidentally, the Air New Zealand Wine Awards have just been announced and the Villa Maria Keltern 2010 just won 3 Trophys: Champion Wine of the Show, Champion Sustainable Wine, and Champion Chardonnay. Neither the Ihumatao or Keltern will disappoint.
-Lawsons Pioneer Series Gewurtztraminer 2010 from Marlborough.  This is a winner of a Gewurtz.  Another of my favourite Gewurtz is Johaneshoff and this is right up there with it.  Slightly European in character and well balanced.  It has also just been awarded a trophy at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards for Champion Exhibition White or Sparkling

For those interested, here's a link to the Air New Zealand Wine Awards Trophy list: http://www.airnzwineawards.com/assets/sm/6816/73/anzwa-trophy-list-2011.pdf

3. Ascension new release tasting
This was a great tasting put on by Ascension vinyards from Matakana at the Hopetoun Alpha in Auckland. About 500 people turned up to try the 7 new releases, with nibbles matched to each wine.  The favourites of the night were on the white side of the ledger with a lovely Rose called 'The Roasrian' Matakana Rose 2011 which wasn't too sweet and had a bit of substance to it. We also liked the 'the Vestal Virgin' Matakana Viognier 2011.  Nice and aromatic, the right amount of spice, and refreshingly summery.  Ascension is only about an hour up the road from Auckland and such a nice place for a wine lunch with friends. I might have to put that on the list of places to visit this summer - it consistently seems to make the list of top 10 wine, beer, food, entertainment places.
On another wine note, I have also just received my latest 'Fine Cooking' magazine from the US and it was great to see a New Zealand wine matched with a Christmas dinner course.  The Coopers Creek Sauvignon Blanc was matched with Potted Shrimp on Toast with Celery Radish Salad.  We quite often have some of the Coopers Creek crew at Lab Night, so it's great to see their global reach!

Finally, here are some of the wine pics  from Lab Night at Pinot Plus at our table(only a small selection as there so many other nice wines including a Coleraine at the neighbouring table). The food, wine and company were as great as ever.

2009 Ten Minutes by Tractor Pinot Noir from Mornington Penninsula in Vic, Australia.  We are heading over there shortly, so was great to sample in advance what we're in for.

Dry River 2007 Syrah and 2000 Mt Langi Shiraz (one of my all time favourite Australian wines!)

Here's the South African treat of the month

Not sure I have done the entree justice with this picture.  It was Ceviche (yum!) and egg plant roulade wrapped around a fig and walnut paste.  Very nice.

Update - just thought I'd add some of the comments Jo made on some of the wines from the Lab Night email:

I guess it goes without saying that there were many stunning wines.  Here are some notes on just a few of them:

·         2002 Palliser Estate Martinborough Reisling.  This wine was definitely showing its age – but not in a bad way.  On the nose lovely apple and grapefruit notes were paired with a heady kerosene note.  The palate was honey and crisp granny smith.  An absolute delight.

·         2009 Ten Minutes by Tractor Estate Pinot Noir.  This was a surprise package from the Swainbanks who recently holidaying in this region.  It was fabulously heady with aromas of strawberries and red cherry, with a bright and vivacious palate with the same flavour spectrum as the nose.  Along with its youth and exuberance, this lighter style Pinot Noir was beautifully made, and showed all the varietal characters you’d hope for in a  Pinot Noir.

·         2005 Valli Bannockburn Pinot Noir.  Wow!  This Pinot is at the other end of the spectrum.  With a few years of age on it, this wine was an amazing mix of primary fruit (mostly dark cherries) and dense secondary forest floor, mushroom, and gamey notes.  It went stunningly well with the slightly wintery foods we were eating.

·         2005 Miles Mossop Wines Max.  This Bordeaux blend from the Stellenbosch region in South Africa was a balanced mixture of power and elegance.  A Cabernet forward blend gave it very striking notes of cassis, with Petit Verdot and Merlot providing balance and texture to the wine.  It truly filled the mouth with flavour that seemed to carry on and on, and despite having six years of age on it the wine felt young and vibrant still. 

·         2005 Te Mata Coleraine.  This wine was everything you’d expect.  Cassis balanced with lovely herby and brambly notes, but without ever feeling under ripe or vegetal.  The tannins were fine but still had a good presence on the edges of the tongue that made it feel like it could have aged for many more years getting silkier and silkier.  This wine justified its ranking as one of NZ’s finest Bordeaux blends.  A word of warning however; it may have just been this bottle but the cork (whilst it wasn’t leaking at all) was very soft and despite a corkscrew being screwed through the entire length of the cork still tore in half (with a core being removed from the bottom half of the cork).  Fortunately, we did manage to get the cork out in the end.  Just be mindful of this when opening any 2005s that you have lying around (oh to be so lucky).



Spring in the Garden

Strawberries and Asparagus - rejoice!  As the days get longer and warmer, and the weather a bit more stable, both of these ingredients are synonymous with the beginning of spring in New Zealand. Between now and Christmas, they are prolific and I simply can't help myself from gorging on them. 

Here's a a really basic asparagus 'recipe' (if you can call it that) to start, which I recently acquired thanks to Hugh Fernley-Whitingstall from River Cottage.  I quite often have this for a quick, somehow virtuous breakfast (maybe except for the butter!): 

"drop a scrap of butter and a dash of white-wine vinegar into a soft-boiled egg, season and use asparagus "soldiers" to stir the yolk into instant, cheaty hollandaise."

 
Though I don't consider myself a green thumb, I have once again started planting my urban veggie patch with my usual overdose of tomato plants and various other summer treasures - fresh heirloom tomatoes with fresh basil and mozzerella are only a few months away.  Though I'm sure I don't plant them properly, or the right distance apart and many can't believe how many tomato plants I have relative to the size of the garden, I always manage to grow heeps of them and there generall aren't a lot left by the end of the season!  My sage and thyme have survived winter, as have a handful of my peppers, and I have decided to plant a few extra companion plants for the bees. 

I am not by any stretch a good gardener unlike my friends Jo and Elle who have a veritable vegetable forest which is well fertilised, well thought out and which produces an abundance of treats all year round.  Jo, who has previously written an article for my blog on lab night, has put together another post on life in the potato patch. I hope he will become a regular contributor to this post.  I'm sure you'll agree he has some interesting 'good life' perspectives:

Over to Jo.......

Yesterday my wife Elle and I dug up the first of our new potatoes.  We've been growing them for a couple of years now, and both springs have enjoyed delicious tender potatoes.  Its some kind of wonderful to dig through moist rich earth and dig out these cream coloured little morsels.

It would be an absolute crime to peel them - even a gentle scrub takes off a lot of the skin.

We boiled them for a few minutes (although with really fresh new potatoes we often steam them) and served them as an entree, tossed with some chopped chives, butter, and some fresh ground salt and pepper.  They were absolutely sensational, and proof (as if we needed more) that spring really is on the way.

The way we grow our potatos is a variation on a theme, and one I first read about in a seattle newspaper.  A lot of people grow potatoes in a stack of tyres.  As the plants grow tall enough, you add another tyre, another layer of seed potatoes and soil, and keep going.  The plants on the bottom layer will keep growing up and up every time you cover their stems.  The variation we use is a wooden box.  This allows the potatoes to be harvested from the bottom, while other layers are still growing above.

I've included plans for the box (which is a bit over engineered, but thats just me).

Here's how it all works:
You'll need:
A = 4 lots of 100x75x1200mm Rough Sawn H4 tanalised Pine
B = 32 lots of 50x150x600mm Rough Sawn H4 tanalised Pine
Lots of 75 or 100mm long Screws

To start with, screw four lots of B (the sides of your box) to your four A’s (the uprights of the box), and fill with a layer of dirt and a layer of seed potatoes (and possibly some special potato fertiliser).As the plants grow to about 200mm about the level of the dirt, add another set of boards, another layer of potatoes, and another layer of dirt.

You can carry this on until the box is completely full of dirt and lots of lovely potatoes.

When a layer has been growing for long enough (it varies on the type of potato you’ve planted), you can simply unscrew the front panel B on the appropriate layer, root around and pull out loads of lovely fresh potatoes. The dirt will be compact enough that it won’t all go everywhere.

At the end of the growing season, the whole thing can be unscrewed, all the potatoes you missed dug out, and then the box can be put in storage for the next season.

The dinner photo is from our second forage into the potato box and is a spring salad of salad greens, sauted asparagus, broad beans, sugar snap peas, a creamy herb dressing, and topped with a poached duck egg along with new potatoes tossed in butter, parsley and chives

A tourist at home

I have been playing tourist in New Zealand for the last few weeks while my parents have been here from Canada, hence the sparceness of blog posts, but it's been really interesting seeing this place from a tourist perspective again. Whilst I work for New Zealand's biggest company, the biggest industry in New Zealand is still tourism and it has been a while since I've been exposed to that side of the country.  Winning the Rugby has been an added bonus (nail biting as the final was!) and even all the Ozzies we saw on the way seemed to be in good spirits, despite not making it through to the finals.  Our tourist adventures really only covered Rotorua and Taupo and the greater Auckland area, but that was just right this time around.   

I haven't been to Rotorua since the last time I had overseas visitors, and it's as smelly and fascinating as ever.  The first taste of NZ hospitality was at the Book a Bach place we stayed at called Eagle Retreat.  It was amazing!  Hardly a Bach and if you are ever in Rotorua, and there is a group of you, this needs to be at the top of your list.  It was really modern, well appointed, had a stunning view right up the hill from the thermal area, and get this, she baked a carrot cake for my Sister's birthday!  Now that's kiwi hospitality.  Check out the link if you're ever in the smelly capital. 

http://www.bookabach.co.nz/baches-and-holiday-homes/view/13292/locale/rotorua-township 

Here's what kiwi hospitality looks like:



My favourite thermal area is still Orakei Korako, which is 1/2 way (or maybe a bit more) to Taupo, down a back road, and well enough off the beaten track to still feel a little more authentic, and it is truly spectacular.  A small ferry ride over the lake and you are in thermal wonderland.  The toilet signs were being upgraded but the owner assured us the 'guysers' and 'galsers' signs we remember from about 15 years ago were going back up shortly!

We had a great time in 'Rotavegas' and you can't go wrong as far as showcasing NZ, though I was a bit surprised at the food prices which are more expensive than Auckland.  Mind you, the facilities at our 'bach' were so good we didn't really eat out much anyways and plenty of card playing took place!

As for Auckland, these are my favourite places to take people from out of town:

Takapuna Beach Cafe with a nice walk on the beach afterwards.

The gannet colony out at Muriwai Beach

Here's a great sign we saw at the Matakana markets.  We also went out to goat island reserve but the heavens opened for a decent shower, so we went for lunch at the Sawmill Cafe in Leigh for lunch instead!  It was just heaving and good as I remember from the last time I was there.    

Sky tower for lunch is always a hit,

and my favourite place to hang out, with or without tourists, is North Head on the shore.  It's such a great place to watch the world go by and also makes me appreciate Auckland for all its splendor. 

Well, my parents are now safely back in Canada and I am going to get back to life as usual, but it really has been neat to see this place from a different perspective.  I've been in NZ for about half my life (no, I am not going to reveal how long that is!) so it is my home, but like every place, you get used to it and every once in a while it is worth stepping back and having a look at it from an outsiders perspective.  I am looking forward to summer in Auckland even more so - it's a great place to be.