This was the night we ate at the Maori restaurant Kai in the City, 21 Majoribanks St, Wellington, New Zealand. We shared a seafood platter, and added dessert - chocolate pudding for me.
The first question that struck us when we started on the tiny cups of delicious chowder that sat in the middle of the platter was, Why aren't people queuing in the street and beating down the doors? How come you can get a table here without even booking - lucky for us, but incomprehensible.
This was seafood cooked with respect for natural flavour and a delicate touch. The chowder was perfectly balanced in flavour, the dishes interesting and varied, and we suddenly understood why people rave about the green-lipped mussels. The oysters were the best we'd ever had - and considering that we both love oysters, this is indeed saying something. In NZ, oysters are shucked at once and either frozen or placed in brine, which made us wonder what they're like fresh.
My chocolate pudding was accompanied with a jam of pepperbush berries, which doesn't sound tempting but turned out to be a perfect tart counterpoint to the chocolate. Pepperberry jam is what blackberry jam wants to be when it grows up, and we clearly need to find some way to grow our own pepperberry bushes.
If in Wellington, make sure to visit this place. Try the meat platter - we plan on having that next time.
I obviously have to go to Wellington some day just to go to this restaurant... And now I have to cook, this made me so hungry. Did you find out if you can grow pepperberry bushes yet?
ReplyDeletewe had a look around just after we came back and i think seeds are gettable somehow if i remember correctly.
ReplyDeleteHehe, are you going to try, do you think?
ReplyDeleteOf course we are. There's a much more specialised and less well-known Chinese curse on the subject of having interesting gardening, and I go for that every time.
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