State of Food: New Zealand circa mid 2014

Travelling the land of the long white cloud has been fun over the last two weeks. I visited both islands during the start of winter, snow began to fall, electric blankets were bought out of the wardrobes and good old comfort food once again showed it's face at the dinner table. The burning question before embarking on this trip was to find out just what exactly 'New Zealand food' is. In America they have BBQ and take away giants and pretty much whatever else you can think off. In Australia, a lot centres around steak and seafood and in Europe, meat based dishes and dessert pretty much rule. New Zealand however appears to be stuck, much like Australia, in a weird twilight zone where the term 'national food identity' has difficulty emerging; we all know pavlova is from here, but what else? 
   The food that often presented itself at almost every stop along the way were various forms of pies. But let me ask you, is the universally adopted, seen everywhere pie, really something New Zealand should base it's culinary premise around? A pie? Mind you, there were plenty of decent pies consumed on my trip and in particular a butter chicken pie, something I had never heard of before this trip, was kind of tasty and unique. The quintessential Maori dish is of course the Hangi, but unfortunately you have to sell you soul and take out a mortgage just to get a whiff of this elusive treat, and even then, I doubt you would get your hands on an authentic 'cooked in the ground' treat. 
   I was thus treated to the usual offerings you can pretty much get in any multi-cultural western country, with no vibe of identity gracing the palate. New Zealand has it's fair share of what I am going to call signature restaurants, like Fergburger in Queenstown where I lined up with a weird and wonderful mixture of snow bunnies, hipsters and middle aged couples on their 'lifetime trip' for close to an hour from joining the cue to taking that delicious first bite. These places though are anomalies; they're dotted here and there, they are all different, hence they don't really represent what is essentially New Zealand. And as a side note; of course we all know lamb is common in NZ. But if you're going to simply replace beef with lamb and say it's New Zealandish, I would have to respectfully disagree.
   Did I have some memorable food? Yes, of course, but was it 'New Zealand'? I craved something different, something unique but as hard as I tried searching and probing, I left with an empty feeling that this beautiful country seems to adopt the cuisine of places somewhere else rather than focus on developing it's own unique identity.  

State of Food: Restaurant Furniture

Why a restaurant must pay attention to a wobbly table, miss-placed setups or back-achingly uncomfortable chairs.

It's been about a year and a half since I started this blog. Inspired by my glutinous love of food, a human necessity to eat, and the fact that I am often able to eat and get refunds or claim it on my tax (he...he...he), I felt the need to share my culinary thoughts with the world.

During this time I have visited close to 40 restaurants, and while that works out to an average of about only one per fortnight, blogging about the visits has been a little pleasure I afford myself with the little free time I have outside of my busy day job. The views have been steadily growing and I am now entering the dreaded PHASE 2; gettin a bit more serious.

So, welcome to the "State of Food", a new section for the blog that allows me to recap my thoughts around some of the learnings that have occurred.

Restaurant furniture. Tables, chairs. Right? There is so much more to these seemingly mundane pieces of plastic, timber and upholstery, yet, I'm going to say, restaurant furniture is quite possibly the most important asset a food establishment may neglect.

Lets start with tables. Recently I had the pleasure of visiting Kendo's Irish Cafe on Ruthven Street (review coming soon). I was there for lunch and the place was kind of empty which I always like because it means my wait for the gastronomical onslaught is typically short. I was greeted and sat at a table of my choice by a cheery waitress, which of course is a lovely gesture, but it was here that I found that the table was wobbly. In fact, it was excessively wobbly to a point of distraction and actually made eating the stew I ordered problematic.
So? I hear you ask. Well, here is the thing. A part of the experience of dining out is of course the customer service and upon finding out that the table was indeed a bit wonky, the waitress did...nothing. She didn't offer a different table (even though there were numerous empty ones about), she didn't try to rectify the situation at all by fixing it on the spot and overall and it detracted from the experience. I sincerely hope that that table is now lying in some scrap heap, for Kendo's sake.
Table choice is critical; too large and it's difficult to talk to someone across the table (Carousel), too small and it's hard to fit the plates and glasses and handbags and wine (Sofra) and if it's too basic, you feel like the restaurateur just doesn't actually care. The table must also match the setting, just like at Hogs Breath Cafe, where the thick timber works well, but the same tables would look out of place at Bazzar.

Next are those wonderful bum-accommodating chairs. You may have possibly heard that some restaurants DELIBERATELY make you sit on chairs that were designed specifically to be uncomfortable so that you do not decide to camp for hours on end taking up precious floor space after devouring your meal. Places like McDonalds and KFC are the masters at this, but then again, should I really be referring to these as "restaurants"? Unfortunately, there appears to be some out there who pay very little attention to the comfort of their patrons and the decision to dump uncomfortable, although quite possibly stylish looking, chairs next to their tables comes at a hefty price. Subconsciously perhaps, diners may not want to stay for that second bottle of wine after their meal, or the place might miss out on a dessert order after the mains. Some of the best seating so far has been at Phat Burgers where there is a choice in seating, as well as the Federal Hotel, where the simple fabric chairs were quite comfortable.
Another area that is often neglected is waiting chairs/benches for take away customers, or while waiting to be seated. Wagaya definitely gets it right with a comfortable bench seat, while at Thai Tanee my little one and I had to sit at a table next to the busy entrance for a lengthy wait on mediocre no-thrills chairs.

Dining setup. All these tables and chairs need to be spread throughout the dining space and a bit of thought here goes a long way. A great example of good design is at Bistro Gitan where there appears to be some weird dark magic being used to organise formal seating, couple seating and bar-style tables highly effectively to cater for what seems like thousands. Phat Burgers too have a highly effective layout. In other places tables are crammed in, making for a "busy" experience especially at a buffet (read Bazzar) and at Sofra I continually felt squashed in while waitresses flashed by with plates of goodness. I think the key word here is 'balance' and it is this that I find quite a number of restaurants just do not think about. If they are a busy place, they cram more in, if it's doing mainly take-away trade, the tables and chairs are arranged in uninspiring army-dining-hall style lines.

So far it's been a mixed bag; there are some simply superb examples of well executed restaurants where the furniture augments the atmosphere, allows free movement throughout the place and makes you want to stay for another wine or two. But then again, there are dreadful examples of wonky furniture, uncomfortable seating and cramped setups that make you wish you were at one of those plastic booths at Hungry Jacks.