Stomachs on legs are proud to present

So we have been living in Auckland since March when our plans to move back to Asia crumbled along side Thailand's aspirations towards democracy.

We are still working on "Plan B".

It's not so bad. The winter here is very mild. I go jogging around Mission Bay on sunny days and think that life is on the whole pretty good.

However, I am experiencing extreme, cross-Tasman national level food envy.

Let me explain. You know how when you go to a restaurant and order the wrong thing and wished you had ordered what your friend ordered and spend the rest of the evening eyeing up their plate? Well it's like that but on a national level.

I once thought that Canberra was at the ass end of all agro-food supply chains. How wrong I was. I've decided that New Zealand now takes that dubious title. Being an major agro-exporter to the world and extremely proud of its local food culture, I know that any New Zealander would argue that I am wrong until they are blue in the face. To which I would respond with a big fat "whateva". Yes we export a whole lotta milk powder...ngeah!

And I can say that because I am a bourgeois female – vanguard of the 21st century – the new working class male (Make way for a whole new type of chauvanism people!!! Possibly involving unbleached tampons) . I also think that most notable food critics and chefs agree with me. I've noticed in the local food press that journalists love to ask visiting food dignitaries such as Rick Stein and others what they think of New Zealand food. The overwhelming response that I have noticed is a slightly uncomfortable shifting in one's seat followed by the very diplomatic comment "it has come a long way from where it was before".

Which isn't really that far. Quite frankly I think the food here, the quality and the variety can be pretty second rate. Given the very small size of the local population, their limited spending power and generally unadventurous palates, top quality, interesting produce does not make much of a showing on most supermarket shelves or farmer's market tables (back in April, I was outraged on a fishing trip to Leigh that the local fishery there does not do any public sales and exports all of its catch directly overseas).

In the meantime, I have been endlessly taunted by Australian cooking shows. MasterChef Australia, SBS's Luke Nguyen's Vietnam and Food Safari have been goading me on cable tv. I have a serious case of Australian food envy. Sitting here in the living room eating yet more kumera, broccoli and chicken, I'm amazed to learn that the Maltese community of Australia is large enough that they make their own Gbejniet. Luke casually mentions that you can buy most varieties of mango and Vietnamese herbs in Australia now and I grimace (not in NZ tho). And to add insult to injury, histrionic Masterchef contestants get to cook with massive pieces of truffles (I asked for a truffle for my birthday but the NZ truffle crop rotted in the floods this season and of course no one imports them because NZer are just too poor to buy them, meanwhile Canberra had a bumper crop).

I love New Zealand, it will always be home. It will always be my birth place. But an unfortunate part of being a New Zealander is feeling like the poor and envious sibling of Australia. To bring it back to the intimate scale of a dining table. It's like always going out to dinner with the same friend who is richer, luckier, more worldly, interesting and louder than you and always gets the better meal...every single time.

Pictured: two of my favourite things to eat in the entire world, black sesame ice cream and sakura mochi, at Kura in Auckland. (The sakura mochi, a sign of spring half a hemisphere away, was served warm).

When we turned up, my friend David said "I'm interested to see what you think this time," which didn't exactly raise my expectations. The quality at decent restaurants tends to go down over time, and on a visit a year ago Kura seemed to have, at best, hit a plateau.
But instead I was pleased to find their delicious braised tongue was back on the menu, and the presentation of the specials had a bit more tender loving care, like the plate below (from the daily specials menu), with a yummy bite-sized square of cold seafood consommé en gelée with little nameko mushrooms in it, andh other treats like genmai-zushi topped with shredded shiso.

That plate only cost 14 dollars, which felt like a bargain compared to food of a similar quality in Europe. And bargain is not a word you say often in NZ these days when it comes to food.

Grooveman Spot (Jazzysport, Japan) played in NZ recently, and made these tour videos. Music might sound better when it's round like a record - but in Auckland, as in Rome, pizza tastes better when it's square.

Eateries highlighted include:
- the café at Conch Records on Ponsonby Rd
-Belgian beer & mussels at De Post in Mt Eden
- square pizza from TOTO restaurant (where Grooveman Spot played at the Turnaround party in the basement)
- tacos and tostadas from the mighty Mexican Specialities in Ellerslie.

...The coffee jelly on the plane looks quite good too.

Appearances by lovable jazzy-kiwi mafia including Mara TK, Mamiko, Cian, 3 yr-old Esai, Nick D, Andy Submariner and Bobby Brazuka.

The Chip Group a partnership between local industry groups and the New Zealand Heart Foundation focused on improving the nutritional profile of chips or chups.

Judging from their website* and giveaways they have received some serious funding.

*Note awesome chip wallpaper.

If you do decide to join up like me you will be privy to some pretty spectacular videos covering topics such as optimum "chip size", "oil temperature", "basket drainage" and of course "salt"

After watching seven amusing clips which cover topics such as THUCK cut CHUPS are BUTTAR for your HELF and that you should not use SKUNNY CHUPS. I aced the tests (sorry modules) and received my certificate for which I am very proud.

The Chip Group recommends printing your certificate off and showing your work mates. Which is exactly what I did but Chalong my sous chef burnt it on an open flame. Where is the respect.

The Chip Group is now busily sending my two nieces in Auckland (I used their address as I thought it would be asking a tad much to send the goodie bag to Bangkok)

1 bottle of Kiwi Style Tomato Sauce (6 muthafucken liters!!!)
1 bottle of Kiwi Style Tartar Sauce (Also 6 ltrs!!! BURP)
1 Jar Kiwi Style Deep Frying Baking Powder (2 kg!)
1 jar of Kiwi style Chicken Salt Seasoning (2.5 kg!!!!!!!!)
1 apron and t-shirt (hopefully size XXXL as the girls little Hello Kitty t-shirts will not fit them after eating 12 liters of heavily processed condiments)

It was not a complete waste of 30 minutes. I learnt that 2.5 thousand tons of fat is equal 632 elephants. WTF? Actually this is the total amount of fat that they wish to remove each year from the NZ populations diet by cooking a better chip which is not a bad idea if you have ever seen Maytels dads tummy.

Anyway the password for my membership was horsefat which the website never once referred to which is a shame really as it is a nice middle ground, bridging the worlds of high and low saturated fats and producing a pretty good chip.

Anyway...Ella and Liv enjoy the 2 kg of Kiwi Style Deep Frying Baking Powder.

One of my favourite movie lines of all time is "don't fuck with the wongs", a nice variant of which is "don't fuck with the Hmongs". I would like to now introduce a new addition to this phraseology - Cambodian edition 2009 - "don't fuck with Miss Wong"

Miss Wong is the latest and might I add coolest new addition to Siem Reap's night scene. Located down a small quiet laneway, across from the Silk Garden and taking inspiration from 1920s Shanghai the small, intimate and classy bar is dressed to the nines as any petite flower girl of "Shanghai Grand" would be. Draped in deep red with, gold pagoda ceiling, every nook and cranny contains unique and elaborate objet d'art, lamps and paintings.









Even the ashtrays are fabulous. New York Times reporters, of outstanding taste agree... as do all but a few curmudgeonly passé expats



Miss Wong's cocktails are more than worthy of the decor with many of the ingredients made from fresh tropical fruits and home made vodka infusions



Miss Wong's proprietor is Dean Williams, ex-radio host and ex-Auckland NZ personality/ boy about town. He dropped by in Cambodia in our final days in the country in 2006 and liked it so much he decided to stay.



If you're a kiwi pop in and say "hullo"

Miss Wong
The Opposite Laneway to the "Passage" on the opposite side of Pub Street
Siem Reap, Cambodia

So the weekend before last I was in Auckland attending our annual sisters' reunion. There are four girls in my family, no boys. This is usually a weekend in either Auckland or Sydney and involves copious amounts of food, booze, giggling, bitching and sometimes tears.

This reunion began with foot massages and yum cha at Pearl Garden for which I was not present, instead I was standing at the kitchen sink grumbling about everything being organised far too early for my tastes, when I realised I just needed to go back to bed for a couple more hours (I had spent the previous day travelling 13 hours from Canberra to Auckland because I had decided to save money and catch the bus from Canberra to Sydney)

So the real get together began Saturday night. I collected kokoda and uni from the Nola's fish shop,



whilst other sisters bought oysters, salmon sashimi, crab, pipis and mussels.

Our dinners when held at my older sisters' are usually a movable feast. First off someone popped some champagne and then I decided to make guacamole with corn chips to serve with the kokoda, a la mexican kokoda that had worked so well when I made in March in NZ....the combination of Pacific Island style fish ceviche with mexican accountrements works and I recommend you try it.

We drunk more

My sister made the pipis and mussels smoked inside the bbq.



We drunk some more

I made kina spread on bruschetta with a bit of butter, salt and pepper and lemon. I had intended on serving it raw but it had a strange bitter after taste that Japanese uni doesn't tend to have so I decided that grilling it would be better. It was. Although reactions to the idea of kina bruschetta by my sister's partner's Maori and Pacific Island work mates was one of confusion "Kina...hmmm....Bruschetta????" Kina Bruschetta is an abomination to anyone that grew up fishing and diving in the Pacific seas.



Then we decided we were full....the live crabs sitting in a bucket in the garage probably thought they had made it past dinner



But then a few hours later came a second wind. We plunged them into hot water, pried back their heads and quartered them and threw them on the brazier



The night ended with cheese, whiskey (seconded from our father's booze cabinet) and a card game that couldn't be won on account of the fact that a number of cards were missing from the deck but everyone was far too drunk to notice



Sunday morning rolled round and began with my sister's spelt flour pancakes served with strawberries, yoghurt and maple syrup. An indulgence that made me wonder where the indulgence was.

We then went cockling at Cornwallis



Once everyone had collected their alloted 50 cockles each we recounted them and threw back the littlest ones





We headed for the grass for a rest beneath the pohutukawa trees, the classic red flowering tree of NZ often called the NZ Christmas tree.



Until we decided we were hungry again

So lunch of smoked salmon, salmon sashimi, cockles, bread and every single condiment we could find was amassed on the table in addition to a salsa verde I whipped up from my sister's kitchen garden.





We peeled off. I had a nap, others went for a walk and the littlest went home to feed her kitten. We reconvened at another Huia beach for a high tide swim



We returned for one last mammoth eating effort, lentil salad, toulouse sausages, tomato ragu and watercress, avocado, pear and walnut salad.



And said goodbye for another year.

So I'm at another anthropology talk fest. Auckland University this time. There's not a lot in the conference program that interests me. It's mainly a lot of academics bleating on about cultural heritage and "identity". Issues that never cease to bore me senseless. I'm presenting tomorrow in a "development" politics panel, but am aiming to try and get to the panel entitled "Appropriating Rurals" and although I should probably be sitting in a lecture theatre on gender or LAND.

IF I'm feeling flippant I might try and get to the talk by Adrian Peace from the University of Adelaide called: "Barossa Dreaming: food, fetsivals and fetishism in rural Australia"

Abstract

It is difficult to imagine a rural region of Australia more thoroughly integrated into the world economy than the Barossa Valley in South Australia. Dominated by a handful of transnational corporations, the wine industry is as thoroughly incorporated into the hegemonic system of global commodity flows as any other part of the country. It is therefore somewhat paradoxical to find that images and representations of heritage, tradition and the authentic community figure pervasively in the intense commodification of the Barossa. In this paper, I detail the representational and discursive processes by which food and festivals are fetishized to constitute the Barossa Valley as a site of nostalgic dreaming. I argue that the advent of the Slow Food movement is the latest addition to these processes. But it is equally important to recognize what is strategically omitted from view.

If I get to go I might ask him some annoying questions on why the words "global" and "hegemonic" are so often conjured in food systems "discourses" and other annoyingly nitpicky academic questions of no particular consequence.

I'm pretty keen on the whole recent anthropolgists schtick of unpicking rural food tourism in general though

I'd also like to see what this presenter has to say...perhaps I'll treat myself

Gifting the Self: the metro-rural idyll and ideal reflexive individuality

Abstract

'I think I'll treat myself.' 'Go ahead, treat yourself.' 'This holiday is a treat to myself.'

These are familiar refrains that may be overheard in the cafés, craft shops, and vineyards of Martinborough - a popular weekend tourism destination for the new middle-classes of nearby Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. These narratives emphasis - personally and socially - notions of gifting the self (Howland 2008) and thus give insight into the calculated reflexive individuality of Martinborough's tourists. Specifically they highlight a reflexive awareness of the self as an object that may be subjected to self-assembly and development regimes. They also underscore an attentiveness to multiple, context-specific selves as evidenced by notions of reward or compensation of the 'working self' to the 'leisured self'. In addition, tourists routinely cast Martinborough as metro-rural idyll - an enchanted, performative setting of leisured consumption that draws upon pervasive notions of the vernacular rural idyll to provide a moral foundation for their urbane consumption activities, social distinction negotiations, and pursuit of ideal reflexive individuality.

Anthropological analysis of kinship-orientated societies often situates reciprocal gifting as the principal mode of economic exchange and vital to social integration and cohesion (Mauss 1972). By contrast, analysis of post-industrial societies often casts commodity, market-based exchange as primary and socially alienating (Carrier 1994). However, gifting the self clearly articulates the hegemonic ideologies and practices of ideal reflexive individuality and as such contributes to the reproduction of the dominant social structure of the 'second modern' (Beck 2002) - namely the institutionalisation of individualism

Peter Howland (Victoria University, Wellington)

So I've been back in Auckland for a week and am heading off to Australia tomorrow. I still haven't caught up on my NYC and Tokyo food blogs but I'll get there. Anyway, one prerequisite of a visit to Auckland always includes a massage at City Chinese Health Centre Clinic. It's located at 1A/30 Upper Queen Street, in the gully when you pass over Karangahape Road (or K Road as it is known to locals). Ada and Dickson are master masseuses that hail from Hong Kong, although they've been living in Auckland for over 20 years. And together they have managed to ruin any other massage I've ever had anywhere ever again since. Whenever I get a massage anywhere else I just lie there and start to miss them. They have a knowledge of pressure points that is unbelievable and while you may find yourself writhing in pain and even letting out small yelps while they go to work on your mouse arm and tight lower back, when you finally emerge from their functional little massage room you may find that you are slightly incomprehensible and dribbling. This may come as quite a surprise to you as the massage is often not at all relaxing in the way one might expect an ordinary massage. This is not only because Ada and Dickson know exactly where you hurt the most but also because Ada, especially tends to chat to you throughout the massage. She'll poke you where it hurts and laugh and say "Chinese massage not relaxing, like Chinese torture aye?" in her uniquely Hong Kong New Zealand accent. She'll taunt your tight little muscles and explain to you that your shoes are all wrong, or that you've got the wrong chair at work. She may also share her restaurant recommendations with you, as she did with me today. As she has recently had an operation and is not working, I got a massage from Dickson, meanwhile Ada pulled up a chair and we compared restaurant notes in between me letting out small yelps of pain.

For dim sim, Ada recommends Sunshine Restaurant in the city, near Grand Harbour which she believes is not as nice, has bad service and poor seating arrangements.

She also recommends Sichuan in Remuera

Cinta, Malaysian restaurant in Dominion Road also gets the Ada Lee seal of approval

Finally Grandma's House on Dominion Road at around 585 gets her approval although I couldn't find it on the web.

And at Ada and Dickson's bargain price of 55 NZD for one hour massage, you'll easily find money left over in your wallet for a meal.

I did just that today after I left them sore and dribbling. About three shop fronts up from their shop is a hand made dumpling shop run solely by a rather abrupt Chinese lady. Tianjian Dumplings, Northern Chinese dumplings, Ada said with a slight air of disdain. Ada warned me that they were a little on the salty side but since I am a salt freak they were fine to me. The shop is filled with formica tables with a few taken up with empty dumpling trays and one covered in flour with a rolling pin. Most of the varieties had sold out already, always a good sign, so I ordered the pork, shrimp and egg, 20 for $10 NZD. I couldn't finish them. I'm a little under equipped at the moment and don't have a camera to show you photos to attest to their deliciousness. But they were delicious.

So my recommendation for Auckland....go see Ada and then use the change to eat some home made dumplings.

Good portions, reasonable prices, friendly, but not too friendly service, only a handful of annoying baby-boomers

and great food, excellent flavours, interesting presentation

nuff said



Tortillini


Tuna and panzenella salad


Crab and avocado salad?


Quail


Snapper


Veal with cocoa sauce


Beetroot gnocchi


Pork


Desserts







365 Dominion Road, Mt Eden, Auckland City, New Zulund

Have you ever been to a restaurant late and they accept your business but then start turning off the lights half way through your meal?

Bamboo House is such a place. It serves very cheap and rather tasty home-style Korean food, and is a bargain if you don't mind rude service and eating in the dark. The meal came to around $14 NZD each. We ordered shoju but they didn't give it to us stating that they didn't think we could drink it quickly enough before they closed. Aaahhh the delights of true Korean hospitality





9 Commerce St
Auckland City
Closing is at 10 pm SHARP

It has been a long held dream of Hock's to slow cook ribs inside of my sister's chimney bbq. So being back in NZ we obliged his fantasy.

We picked up Louisiana styled rib cuts at Westmere Butchers, which was packed to the gills the day before Easter Friday. We took our ribs back to my father's apartment in town. Hock protested that we hadn't bought enough ribs so Ginny ran up the road to Parnell butchers and got more. We began the preparation by removing the membrane from the back of the ribs and then rubbing them down with a dry rub. The ribs marinaded overnight.



Hock put Ginny to work pounding the chicken marinade. A paste of vegeta, Mexican oregan, oil, smoked paprika and a Mexican spice mixture containing Annatto .




Ginny was also instructed to start the fire in the BBQ early the next morning to make sure the heat had died down just enough to keep the bbq warm but not hot. She was instructed to never let the embers flame, but to always have a small pile of burning embers in the corner of the bbq, just warm enough to slow cook the meat with warm smoke.

BBQ-ING




Hock put together the bbq sauce, choosing a recipe from Mike Mills.

Moppping



Ruby the dog gave out tortured whimpers



Hock cooked Corn Bread



The Finished Product


Kereru landed in nearby trees but this time no one was interested in speculating on their flavour


The ribs were good, but would have been better if we had used a proper smoking device. Still it was a perfect evening and a perfect family meal.

Well, my yum cha experiences are somewhat limited. I haven't been to the excellent-sounding East Ocean in Sydney, let alone Hong Kong. I spent six weeks staying in Melbourne's Chinatown, but found the yum cha there to be on the flabby side (at its best when scooped out of the deep frier), and wasn't impressed by the yum cha in New York's Chinatown either (I have read that dedicated yum cha hunters there go to New Jersey). I enjoyed the expensive dim sum at London's celebrity joint Hakkasan, but seriously, with those prices, who are they kidding? I found the great blogger Chubby Hubby's recommended yum cha spot in Singapore to be ridiculously cheap - and not outstandingly deliciously so. (The steamed carrot cake and custard buns were OK...A moot point since, for me, the top priority is non-gluggy dim sum, and a great variety thereof.)

I'm under no delusions that it's the world's best, but I must say a cracking yum cha spot remains Auckland's Grand Harbour restaurant down at the Viaduct. For taste & value for money, it's probably the best overall experience I've had. (Of course I do have greater ambitions: some day i hope to eat waves of dim sum made by a top Hong Kong or Singapore chef until I start to hallucinate). But here, for roughly eight euros p/p you can enjoy a veritable feast of dumplings, proffered by tolerant servers in a restaurant that is clean and comfy, carpeted wall-to-wall and bedecked with Ming-style vases filled with flowers. Seafood fans can enjoy a serving of NZ green-lipped mussels from a steaming cart, and the beef shu-mai are enormous - and juicy, not fatty. Judicious use of herbs, sweet corn, water chestnut, peanuts or brown vermicelli noodles is found in many of the dumpling treasures that end up on your plate - and the prawns and seafood elements are plentiful and fresh. The rice paper wrappers are never gummy. Those green beans in chilli oil were yummy, too.