Which reminds me, where's Angela? Are you still around?
Anyway, purely in the interests of you lot and at great personal expense, I had to see what the curries on offer in Wellington were like. Wellington claims to have more restaurants per capita than New York - and most of them are within 10 minutes walk of each other, so the choice is overwhelming. There is a vast range to choose from - Malay restaurants outnumber most other types, but there are also Indian, Middle Eastern, Pacific Rim, Thai, Italian, US style and the usual fast food places, and a lot of restaurants that serve some of each.
The Indian restaurants all offered the usual stuff we see over here, plus a few variations, and most have a set meal or banquet for about NZ$25 (£7-ish) per head. After reading a dozen or so menus we decided on a restaurant called Saffron, which was decorated very trendily - purple and yellow walls ("Like sitting in a b***dy crocus": HWMBI) and polished floorboards.
To make life easier we ordered the banquet. Starters were chicken tikka, kofta kebab and an enormous plateful of vegetable pakoras. A mint raita with the tikka and a hot chilli sauce with the pakoras.
Mains - butter chicken (which seemed to actually be CTM, and was delicious), lamb rogan josh, beef madras, and a vegetable korma with paneer in it. Plus naan bread and a mountain of rice. It was absolutely delicious but despite the fact it was 10 pm and we had been outdoors all day, not having eaten since breakfast, we couldn't finish more than two thirds of it..... the portions were HUGE (seems to be the case everywhere in New Zealand).
Excellent meal, and when I think what it would have cost in Fleet (for portions half the size) I could weep. The service wasn't too good, but as there was a large party in the place complete with overtired kids, I will give them the benefit of the doubt on that.
Jane
From [email removed] Sat Nov 24 08:29:27 EST 2001
Article: 3708 of uk.food+drink.indianNew Zealand
Curry in New Zealand
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 02:49:23 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: YA-NewsWatcher/4.2.6 Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu uk.food+drink.indian:3749 > Please explain to me Angela, why there are so few fat people in New > Zealand? because no one is more than 2 hours from the beach. i think nz-ers are just active, even where i live, Dunedin, where it's cold and Manchurian. it's just so goddamned beautiful here and we worship our summer activities ... did anyone recommend Little India in Wellyton? It;s a franchise that was started by the brother of the Indian Mayor (Sukhi Turner) of Dunedin - I've tried the Queenstown, Dunedin and Wellington outlets and their Butter Chicken brings tears of joy to my eyes ... it's an infamous dish all over NZ. From [email removed] Tue Jul 20 06:27:09 EDT 2004 Article: 59127 of rec.food.restaurants
User-Agent: NewsWatcher-X 2.2.3b1 Lines: 70 Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 23:00:20 +1300 NNTP-Posting-Host: 202.0.35.86 X-Complaints-To: [email removed] X-Trace: news02.tsnz.net 1006509384 202.0.35.86 (Fri, 23 Nov 2001 22:56:24 NZDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 22:56:24 NZDT Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu uk.food+drink.indian:3708 In article , "Jane Willis" Someone wrote: > Which reminds me, where's Angela? Are you still around? > > Anyway, purely in the interests of you lot and at great personal > expense, I had to see what the curries on offer in Wellington were like. > Wellington claims to have more restaurants per capita than New York - > and most of them are within 10 minutes walk of each other, so the choice > is overwhelming. Population of Wellington urban area: about 160,000. Restaurants: 500 or so. It's a pretty high proportion. Well, they're not *all* good... > There is a vast range to choose from - Malay > restaurants outnumber most other types, but there are also Indian, > Middle Eastern, Pacific Rim, Thai, Italian, US style and the usual > fast food places, and a lot of restaurants that serve some of each. Tsunami Sushi in Vivian St does, as my wife calls it, Fushi - Fusion Sushi. They even have deep-fried chili sushi with pineapple salsa - much better than it sounds. > > The Indian restaurants all offered the usual stuff we see over here, > plus a few variations, and most have a set meal or banquet for about > NZ$25 (£7-ish) per head. After reading a dozen or so menus we decided on > a restaurant called Saffron, which was decorated very trendily - purple > and yellow walls ("Like sitting in a b***dy crocus": HWMBI) and polished > floorboards. Not the best Indian in Wgtn, but certainly up there. > > To make life easier we ordered the banquet. Starters were chicken tikka, > kofta kebab and an enormous plateful of vegetable pakoras. A mint raita > with the tikka and a hot chilli sauce with the pakoras. > > Mains - butter chicken (which seemed to actually be CTM, and was > delicious), lamb rogan josh, beef madras, and a vegetable korma with > paneer in it. Plus naan bread and a mountain of rice. It was absolutely > delicious but despite the fact it was 10 pm and we had been outdoors all > day, not having eaten since breakfast, we couldn't finish more than two > thirds of it..... the portions were HUGE (seems to be the case > everywhere in New Zealand). > But still there's nowhere that does Chicken Dhansak. Our hearts skipped a beat in Rotorua (Rottenrua, RotoVegas), which had it on the menu; however nobody ever ordered it so they didn't have it. )-8. > Excellent meal, and when I think what it would have cost in Fleet (for > portions half the size) I could weep. The service wasn't too good, but > as there was a large party in the place complete with overtired kids, I > will give them the benefit of the doubt on that. > > Jane Best overall curry in town? probably the Velutakari (sp?) at Roti Chanai in Victoria St. And their lassi is unbeatable. It's got *texture*! Sigh. Best Thai (OT): Original Thai, Island Bay Parade. A few years ago Island Bay had floods which flowed through the restaurant about 30cm deep. The waiter kepts on serving, the diners rolled up their trousers and kept on eating.