New Zealand: Restaurants

[rsc]

Eating all one's meals in restaurants for three weeks is a good way to eat too much. We learned to avoid dessert, and to either skip appetizers ("entrées", that is -- see below) altogether or just split one. We also started, about halfway through, making a practice of trying to keep lunch down to a quick sandwich.

Menu terminology wasn't a big problem. I did have to get used to remembering that the US is the only place in the world where "entrée" means "main course", and I have no idea how that came about. So, yes, "entrées" are appetizers; the big things are called "mains". It wasn't hard for me to figure out that "capsicums" are bell peppers. I eventually learned that what I consider a cup of coffee is a "long black".

Lamb, of course, shows up everywhere, in a variety of guises. It's hard to go wrong ordering lamb in New Zealand. (Although seeing "lamb rump" on menus took a little getting used to.) Likewise seafood -- I mean, there's nowhere in the whole country that's very far from the ocean. A particular specialty is the Green-lipped Mussel, so called because there's a green stripe all along the outer edge of the shell. They're enormous -- the shells are 8-10 cm long -- and extremely flavorful. I had a bowlful of them (about two dozen, I think) in a somewhat spicy broth for dinner in Nelson, and apart from the bread provided to soak up the broth it was really all the food I needed, and then some. Heavenly.

A glass of wine with dinner every night is a very civilized way to live. Most restaurants had a reasonable selection of fairly nice New Zealand wines by the glass. (Twice we had lunch at wineries, where there's an even larger selection.) Although everyone seems to think that sauvignon blanc is the New Zealand wine, we found some very nice chardonnays as well, and some very drinkable pinot noirs.

Prices were actually fairly moderate for the type of place we were eating. It can be confusing when a country's currency has the same name and symbol as the one you're used to, but it's actually different. So one might get a bit of a shock at a main for $30, until one remembers two things: (1) that's really US$21, and (2) it's actually how much you're going to pay, since it includes taxes and restaurant personnel don't expect tips. (There was a note on every menu that a 15% service charge would be added on all public holidays; this is apparently mandated by law, and I assume it's to compensate employees for having to work on said holidays. There were no public holidays during our stay.)

And then there was Taste.

Comments

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Provincetown in August is unlikely for me, but you never know. When in August?

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Ironically, we're going to be in the Bay Area during the latter half of that week -- probably at least through the following Tuesday, so if it doesn't work out here, maybe there?

[susandennis]

My friends from New Zealand go nuts over here with prices in stores because of the tax but when they get into restaurants and have to wrestle tax and tip, it just messes with their Kiwi brains. They can't handle it. And my latest visitors had a real problem with our change. "Why in the world do you fuck with pennies??!!"

One thing I did so love about all of New Zealand were the odd little snack shops and tea rooms that were everywhere. You could pick up a homemade meat pie or sandwhich anywhere and they were always always delicious.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

"Why in the world do you fuck with pennies??!!"

Indeed, I never saw a coin smaller than 10¢. The couple of times we shopped in supermarkets (for breakfast stuff) and paid cash, the cashier rounded down to the nearest 10¢.

[cubdaddy.livejournal.com]

I'd much prefer to tour New Zealand rather than Australia as I've heard it's so much nicer.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Having never been in Australia, I can't speak to that, but New Zealand definitely very nice.

[unzeugmatic.livejournal.com]

the US is the only place in the world where "entrée" means "main course", and I have no idea how that came about.

I have a theory about this based on an old meal etiquette book I have from around 1910. I need to find that book to get this right -- I meant to write up a journal entry about it.

In this book, they listed out all the courses of a formal dinner. There were something like seven of them. One of the courses was the entree, which came just before one of the meat courses but was not what we would call the appetizer -- both the entree and the next course were things that we would consider main courses now. So as some of the courses got eliminated and the menu pared down, the entree was one of the courses that remained.

If I find the book and list out the courses you'll see what I mean. But my theory is that it was the course following the entree that got eliminated, leaving the name entree.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid our cook used to call the first course what I thought I heard as arm-tray. I don't know if it was my childish hearing or her germanesque pronunciation of entrée.