Entries Tagged 'Out and about' ↓

A couple of changes around town that might influence our coffee habits.

Plum

Bad news. Plum owners have installed the 1st- and 2nd-chef from Pravda to flash up their offering. This might be OK for where they are wanting to pitch their evening meal although I doubt the wisdom of this on lower Cuba Street. The immediate effects on our Saturday breakfast are devastating:

• The current manager who has our requirements perfected, and who makes the best coffee (almost better than Fuel) is leaving in disgust, along with a few of the other regular staff.
  
• The 3 bits of toast cut off a sour dough loaf for $6-odd has turned into 3 crossways slices off a Turkish loaf which mean tiny slivers of toast that don’t even fill me up (I know!). Essentially way less for the same price. 
  
• There’s no peanut butter.
  
• They charge $1 for tomato sauce should you want some to go with your poached eggs.

Now we have to find somewhere else for Saturday breakfast.

Superfino

A new ‘refreshment’ bar has opened on Ghuznee Street, opposite Budget Rent-a-Car so not in a heavy pedestrian area so a bit of an unusual location. Has good Supreme coffee and lots of wine and cocktails (its main focus I think) and some delicious little rolls and cakes. Open 7.30am until whenever the customers run out every day except Sunday. Good idea and I hope it will last. An ex-Fuel barista now employed by Supreme works there Saturday’s and he’s introduced us to the owners.

Mojo

Jewellery store that has recently been knocked down on Bond Street is being redone by Mojo. Possibly a restaurant as the notice on the boarded frontage says they’ve applied for a liquor licence. Can’t wait to see what they do.

Is this new ramp thing in Ghuznee Street a piece of art?

Or a skate boarding ramp?

It’s a bit treacherous though – the garden planter and rubbish bin beside it are right in the landing zone. We saw a few accidents.

Have driven by the new Kumutoto development on the waterfront (previous post) a few times in the last couple of days on the Monty mission and finally snapped a picture of this new building.

What’s up with the louvres/louvers*? At first I thought they’d left the scaffolding up, then wondered if they were outside shutters operated by a little screw handle on the inside like so many shuttered homes in Europe.

Have scratched around and worked out that it’s the new building for Meridian Energy and is the first ‘green’ building in NZ – warming and powering itself by natural elements and its own recycling.

Based on their press release, the louvres could be part of either of these:

• A double-skinned façade to manage the internal environment.
  
• Photovoltaic solar panels to generate a small amount of electricity.
  
• A computerised building management system that automatically adjusts windows, lights and air conditioning for the weather conditions outside.

* spelling of this word is somewhat ambiguous seeming to be used in either format in New Zealand and in some case in both formats at the same time. My gut feeling is ‘louvre’ but have included ‘louver’ as well to show that in this case I’m not sure and that I accept there may be another spelling of it. 

Got a summons from Fuel today – they were doing a photo shoot for a profile they’re doing and needed some models customers. Me and my oldest Fuel friend gladly obliged – he knew about the free coffees on offer – I just went bolstered that they needed *my* help with something.

Got a free coffee and stood around chatting (whilst being prodded to stand this way and that) to some other regulars from other sites who I’d never met – in the small town that Wellington is they both turned out to be ex-colleagues/bosses of people I now work with!

When it was all over there was much hand-shaking and we were laden down with goodies handed out by Sanjay himself – tonnes of free coffee vouchers, as much of the catered lunch (food props) as we could carry and a bag of beans! Yeah boy!!

So, who know, maybe I’ll be on a billboard around town somewhere … or perhaps a small shot on their website!

I went and had a wander around the Kirkcaldie & Stains department store sale yesterday. Wander is a thing I shouldn’t have been able to do. It was rather disappointing. The sale used to be ‘Kirk’s’ stuff cheap, now it’s cheap stuff in Kirk’s.  It seems they import a whole lot of stuff that they don’t normally sell – big bottles of pink bathwash and 5-packs of knickers and thinner towels and put sales tickets on them. The store just wasn’t as crowded as it usually is on the first day and I came away with nothing. Usually I manage to pick up something from their normal stock that’s going cheap – a bottle of perfume, a jumper, some earrings. Sigh.

Had one of those rainy day clean outs recently and despite the rain we’d agreed that we go from start to finish in one day – no leaving a pile of recycling by the door for the next few weeks – so even in the rain we set off to the recycling station with our flattened boxes, ancient cell phone instruction manuals, bits of polystyrene, shrunken t-shirts and a big old CRT monitor that no longer worked.

Recycling station doesn’t take computer parts or polystyrene!! Told us that the only thing to do was go on up to the tip, which we did. Up that mysterious windy pot-holed road with bits of plastic bag and newspaper clinging to the road-side shrubbery. Well. Great excitement! The car and cargo got weighed on the way in and out with a difference of 20kg – who knew a monitor and 2 bits of polystyrene weighed that much? Fun to find out that the car weigh 1600kg though.

Up at the tip face in the howling wind and rain we backed the car up to the edge between a big Ford transit van and a guy and his son with an old family trailer full of dirt and roots from the garden. We opened the boot and the Mister flung the monitor out into the concrete pit. What a rush! It landed face down in an eerie moment of silence with a deep guttural boom that we felt in our stomachs. All the tippers came to a standstill and we got a decent look up and down laced with distain and are-you-from-another-planet from Suburbia Dad, taking in the Diesel puffer, suede shoes, European car, woman driver and the fact that we tossed out what looked like a perfectly decent computer.

And we only had to pay $5 for the thrill!

Because the Mister is a Jon Stewart fan we’ve started watching the Daily Show most nights it’s on over here. Obviously I don’t get the political rhetoric and jibes – but Jon is *very* nice to look at and has a fantastic laugh. And he’s on a bus around town!

Oh. My. God. I have adrenaline instead of blood pumping through my veins. Well, mostly the veins in my legs! I am not proud of this (well, maybe little … ) but for the first time in my life I went a bit sideways while driving. I must say I’m a bit guilty of believing that because it was a decent car that it would sort itself out but I could in that sliver of time hear my father’s voice saying “Turn into the skid” so I am taking credit for handling myself well in a very scary situation without my passenger wetting themselves!

Breathe …. 😀

We had a work function at the NZX last night (first day listed – v.exciting) and they have a proper commercial machine there … it was on … Jiff really wanted a coffee … the caterers didn’t know what do to. So I bowled on up to an NZX’er and asked if I could use the machine, assured him that I knew what I was doing, and with many an onlooker, produced a coffee that Jiff said was great (for those of you who know him, just imagine that rising excited accent of his and you’ll realise how great ‘great’ sounds when he enthusiastically says it!).

I was very proud – look at those smiles! 🙂

Saw this sailing boat all lit up sitting in the harbour when we came back into town tonight. Beautiful.