Entries from November 2007 ↓

Had lots of fun today at Nikau – I was let behind the coffee machine to make my own coffee and one for the boss too! Didn’t taste too bad – the steamer was crazy powerful so the milk was a bit bubbly. So now I’ve had a go with 3 commercial machines – Fuel, NZX and Nikau

Great turn out for the Santa parade today! It was a bit spindly last year so I thought maybe its future would be in jeopardy but probably not after today. Mind you it was another gorgeous day.

Had a lovely day yesterday – did a couple of our favourite things. Went for a walk around the waterfront in the morning – it was so warm and not a breath of wind. The ducks were making very impressive wakes.

Despite the sunshine (actually we had to go inside as the Mister got sunburnt drinking a smoothie by Freyberg Pool) we went to a movie at the Empire Cinema in Island Bay. Have never been out there before and it was great! We had the cinema to ourselves so I could not risk breaking the law (I think? … if so … OMMIGOD … can’t believe *I* broke the law) to snap a photo of my dream date

3rd corner in the 11 months we’ve been in this office. Still very orange.

Another Mojo has opened up on Bond Street during last week - a full on cafe rather than a takeaway joint. Open early on week days and early enough on Saturdays that there’s another possibility for breakfast. Snapped these couple of photos on my way to work this morning. Looks pretty classy on a generally grotty street …

Breakfasted at Chocolate Fish around in Karaka Bay yesterday – a fine day and a last chance to eat there before it closes. Food and coffee was good as always although I had BROWN sour dough toast - having said that, it wasn’t too bad as far as brown bread goes. The story is Chocolate Fish are shutting up shop because the rates are too high – I’m not sure whether their stand is political or whether they really don’t make enough money (given that they’re heaving during the weekends) to pay the rates. The outdoor dining canopy comes down last week in November; 1/2 December is their last weekend trading as a cafe and then they’ll just be ice creams and takeaway coffees until 31 December when they close. Very sad.

So we turned to pudding! Success and new things from orange kitchen for dinner last night.

Spinach Lasagne
Individual strawberry cheesecakes

Made the cheesecakes up completely! Cobbled them together based on what I’d seen our friend do in Blenheim and a bit of a recipe I got from Mum once. There was too much butter in the base so it was a bit chewy but still tasted damn fine.

I know a Rocket Scientist!! Honest! A guy I work with is one. I would post a photo but as it’s Movember he’s very hairy (9 days in) and a bit too dodgy-looking to grace this blog

Had to represent Xero at another awards ceremony tonight (TUANZ, where we picked up the SaaS award) and afterwards had dinner at Capitol with some friends we picked up at the awards.

Here we are holding the prize, and the Mister with our friend from Ponoko

Sitting listening to the conversation at dinner at one stage I felt like I was in one of those are-you-smarter-than-a-fifth-grader competitions when they pull out the riddle “Listen to the following 4 words and tell me what sport I am talking about. Oval, stump, silly, whites. ” (God! Do I really know that many words related to cricket that are not cricket specific?!) Aaaaanyway, the word riddle I was in the middle of was, what is the topic of conversation in which these words would be found: spaces, dock, coherence, expose, spotlight? I suggested to our dinner party that we all come up with a few ‘normal’ words and attach them to a topic and then have an entire conversation where every other word was one of these chosen ones to see how long it would take other unwitting participants to ask what the hell we were talking about!

And in case you were wondering – no we haven’t been to Capitol in months as the owner we know hasn’t been working and the last menu had nothing on it that I’d eat. I’m pleased to report our guy is back (although wasn’t working tonight) and the two excellent choices on the menu for me are rigatoni with zucchini, basil and feta and pea and artichoke risotto with pancetta – the latter I had and it was pretty good although perhaps a bit much pancetta meant that it was hard to break through the salt to taste either the peas or the artichokes.

The weather here really is miraculous sometimes. Monday was pretty grey and damp and cold and then about 3pm the sky turned blue. Perfect calm blue. We walked around to our spot on Oriental Parade and enjoyed the display. Pretty much the same as previous years – lots off booming setting off car alarms. A helicopter delivered the opening display and took a lot longer with more fireworks than previous years which was cool.

The harbour was so calm that when the fireworks lit up the sky it just looked amazing.

They closed O. Parade off to traffic rather unexpectedly, not sure why, it’s just a big traffic jam at the close of the display, nothing dangerous. It just meant Wakefield street was jammed up for an hour instead and that’s a main route.

Tried the next new cafe on the list on Saturday morning trying to find our new regular spot – Caffee Italiano on Cuba St (strange website – last time I went there the content was all pushed down the page with a huge blank space at the top. And it doesn’t tell you much about the cafe).

Anyway – they had TWO gorgeous orange coffee machines.

Not much else going for it though. It was more of an Italian foodstuffs deli (although not like any deli or cafe I went to in Italy) and they offer a very ‘Italian’ breakfast (although again NOT like any Italian breakfast we had in Italy). The only thing remotely edible for my palette at that time of the day was croissants with Nutella, although they did offer jam when I asked them to hold the Nutella. Otherwise it was ciabatta with parmesan and proscuitto and stuff like that. No butter in sight. Coffee was OK – not the worst we’ve had but definitely that ‘grey’ flavour I associate with Illy which I think is because it’s tinned imported and pod stuff.

We might go back there for supplies, however can get most of the stuff at Moore Wilsons, but not for breakfast. The Mayor was there. Lots of people came in, realised what was on offer for breakfast and left. Bloody staid Kiwis!