Stories: Memorable Meals

  • Russell Brown,

    Good feeds, bad feeds, meals you made and meals laid out for you. Feeds at home and feasts abroad. Special dinners, long lunches and big breakfasts. Tell us about them all this month …

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

52 Responses

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  • Grant McDougall,

    I've got a goody...

    Back in late December 1993 (sorry to paraphrase Albert Hammond there) a flatmate and I got a ride with his brother from Dunedin up to Wellington. We were going back to our home-towns for Christmas, they to Wanganui, I to Gisborne.

    We were due to leave at 7am on a Sunday morning and cane it up the virtual length of the South lsland to Picton, for an 8pm ferry crossing.

    My flatmate and I went out boozing the previous evening: we would've gone to the Empire, maybe the Crown as well, before ending up at a mate's flat. We rolled in the door at 4am. Had three hours' sleep before Kev's brother arrived, fresh as a daisy. In comparision, we felt severely crapulent. We ware talking "my head feel's like it's been ran-over by a bus" type hangovers. There were photos taken of us in this state and they are not nice.

    So we headed of on a bright, bright, sun-shiny day (sorry to para-phrase, etc,etc...). Without any breakfast. We played a lot of music; we played King Loser's Super Sonic Free Hi-Fi as we burst through Timaru, while Iggy's Lust For Life__played as we headed futher towards Christchurch. Neil Young's __Live Rust was also played somewhere along the way.

    Just after midday we made the one stop of the entire journey, a 20-minute break at a tearooms in Amberly, north of Christchurch. I would've had something like a pie, a custard square and pot of tea. By no means was this place what Braunias, S, would call an "espresso slop-house".

    We carried on...and on...all this time my flatmate and I suffered bitter, nasty, heinous hangovers. It was not nice. We got up near Kaikoura. For - I am not making this up - half-an-hour we were stuck on the piddly narrow road that constitutes SH1 in that neck of the woods behind two old bags, literally out for a Sunday drive. The frustration was almost unfeasible.

    About 5.30 or so, we hit Blenheim. As we drove through we spotted, like a mirage in a desert a KFC. We quickly debated wehter to stop or not; I mean, we were hanging out for something yum, yum, yummy. But none of us had any idea of how long it might take to get to Picton, so we figured it'd be better safer than sorry to just get to Picton.

    Half-an-hour later, we get there and check the car in to the queue and realising we've got about an hour to spare, rush off to find a fish and chip shop.
    We go into Picton, go down a side-street and there, like a mirage in a desert, is a fish and chip shop. It had an orange buoy in the window and next it was a sign with the magical words "Cook Strait groper, $2" on it. The salivation was copious. We go and each order "a scoop of chips and a Cook Strait groper, please", certain that this will salve the wretched, throbbing hunger churning away in our bellies.

    We take the packages back to the car, our stochs bursting with anticipation...we bit in to the chips...__and they are f---ing horrible.__ I mean not just a bit crap, but truly mediocre. They were cold, half-cooked, pale, appalling, dire things. The Cook Strait groper was even worse, more batter than there was actual fish and also a weak, insipid, nasty, grotesque imposter of anything even resembling food.

    All three of us threw our fish and chips away in disgust. Even the seagulls wouldn't go near them; clearly they were once bitten twice shy from that shop.
    All three of us could've cried were that let down: the anticipation had been immense, only for it to be a disaster. It was not fair.

    A bit later we got on to the ferry and sprinted to the bar for salvation. There, we would find comfort and refuge. We did. The bar might've only had Speight's, DB and Lion Red on tap, but at least the former was trust-worthy, if not spectacular.
    I grabbed a pint and went outside, as the sun was coming down. There is a photo of me taken at that point, slaking my thirst and the look on my face is one of pure relief. At last, I'm having something nice.

    A few years' later I found myself back in Picton, again waiting for the ferry. Eager not to make the same mistake, I went to another fish and chip shop, well, more a takeaway bar than a chippie, but anyway...I ordered some chips and a hot-dog. Whilst waiting for my order, I told the woman serving me of my previous harrowing experience of Picton takeaways.
    "Ah yes", she said, "he's called 'Mr Cardboard' by the locals and they all think he's bad as well."

    So, the moral of the story is: never enter a fish and chip shop in Picton with an orange buoy in the window. Enter, truly, at your peril.

    Dunedin • Since Dec 2006 • 760 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    I cooked my vegetarian girlfriend a tofu meal once. I 'mashed' it (an unappetising square of Tofu) with a potato masher to make it look like mince, then I fried it with soy sauce till it was brown (to make it look like mince), and served it up with spaghetti and pasta sauce. And some green pepper on top for good measure.

    She appreciated the gesture, despite my obvious attempts to make it look 'meaty'. (The only way I could blardy eat it!)

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • Deborah,

    Duck confit. Divine. You other PAS folks should be trying to wangle an invitation to Chez Che.

    New Lynn • Since Nov 2006 • 1447 posts Report Reply

  • daleaway,

    The one I think back to, which I can't reproduce in New Zealand alas, is a supper of cold reindeer sandwich and a pancake with lingonberry jam. Made over a campfire somewhere along a salmon river in Lapland, in the course of a magical summer on the road in Scandinavia.

    Picking the lingonberries was the fun bit; they look like yellow raspberries growing on a strawberry plant in the marshland. But I confess we bought the reindeer fillets from the local general store, same as the locals did!

    You could damned near cut steaks off the local mossies though, so it wasn't all fun and games. Big green Arctic things. Ugh.

    Since Jul 2007 • 198 posts Report Reply

  • Jonty,

    When I were nobbut a lad I hated cheese. Just couldn't understand why anyone would eat something that smelled like old socks. Until, that is, the day of my conversion. When I were about 12 I did a bread round. That is, I helped the bread delivery man (known as the baker) every Saturday for about 7/6d. This all took place a long, long time ago in an England that has long since disappeared. In those days deliveries were made in an old Fordson van that reeked of petrol fumes and fresh bread, if you can imagine such a combination. Pulling up outside a grand house I would open the back doors of the van and, with the help of a long round pole with a shiny 6" nail through the end, I would hook out still warm loaves and place a variety, together with a selection of packets of tarts, into a large wicker basket and proceed up the path or drive to the house (tradesman's entrance), often accompanied by a few feisty corgies snapping at my ankles. The lady of the house would sniffily squeeze the loaves and usually settle on a small Hovis (to keep the cost down). Upon being asked politely if she could possibly manage to settle her long outstanding account she would snap: "Next week" and shut the door in my face. I would then have the long trek back to the van, keeping the corgis off my ankles with a few well-placed kicks, to report to the baker that payment was there none. It was at this time of my life that I first began to perceive that the English class system was propped up on an elaborate system of credit. About the middle of the day, having been on the round since about 7am, the baker would find a quiet spot to pull over and produce his flask of tea and packet of wife-made sandwiches, usually cheese. On the particular day of the aforementioned conversion I had overslept and rushed from the house without taking my own packed lunch. I now sat in the smelly Fordson absolutely ravenous listening to the baker noisily munching cheese sarnies, slurping hot tea, all the while dabbing his indelible pencil on his tongue while he brought his accounts book (held together by an enormous elastic band) up to date. Just when I thought I was going to expire from hunger the baker noticed I wasn't eating. "No lunch lad?", he said. "No time to make any this morning, slept in." "Oh", he said disinterestedly, and went back to his tea and indelible pencil. Finally it was time to move on. He pressed the starter button, a cloud of fumes belched in from under the dashboard. It was then he caught me eyeing his last remaining cheese sandwich. "Fancy a sandwich", he said casually. I pounced on it like a dying man. It was the most heavenly sandwich I had ever eaten. I savoured every mouthful. I never thought cheese could be so wonderful. My mother never suspected that it was a near-death experience that had brought about my sudden conversion.

    Katikati • Since Mar 2007 • 102 posts Report Reply

  • daleaway,

    Last night I dreamed I said lingonberries when I meant cloudberries, and when I woke up, it was all true. Rats. (I probably mean mice.)

    Since Jul 2007 • 198 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    well, a special thanks to deborah for enjoying the meal.

    they don't always turn out so well. but! at least there were only three courses.

    i fed a number of PAS people on this occasion.

    14 people, 12 dishes, and one hell of a day of cooking.

    but, if you're going to do an easter/pagan festival, you have to do it right.

    we're already planning the next one. you can't guarantee a decent autumn without it!

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Like Grant, I have a horror fish and chips story which comes from driving the length of the south island. A common theme down here one suspects.

    With a vanload of fellow activists, I was driving from Dunedin, leaving on Thursday evening, to get to a training workshop in Palmerston North. The training related to using political community theatre.

    We left Otago Uni at about 6pm, and made it to Christchurch at something close to midnight. The last couple of hours we had driven through on the promise that in Christchurch there was a quality cafe (I forget the exact name... Caffeines maybe?) that was open 24 hours and which did decent coffee and food.

    We arrived at the square to discover that said cafe was closed. We moped around for a while looking for an alternative (this was 1995, predating the times of 24 hour McDonalds and other such places, not that a bunch of hippy veggie lefties such as us would have gone there anyway).

    Four or five of us braved a late night fish and chip shop stuck away in the corner of the square. It looked iffy, but it literally was the only option, and we had a ferry to catch early in the morning.

    It was truly repulsive. I struggled through half a dozen of the chips, before giving them up as only cooked on the outside, and rubbery and dripping in oil. The fish tasted like it had been fed on rubber for most of its life, and consisted of about 25% fish, and 75% batter. The batter was greasy and tough, and about as grey as the fish.

    All of us, in sequence, received our food, tasted it, struggled on for a few more bits, and then deposited it neatly in the convenient rubbish bin outside before heading north to try find an early breakfast in Blenheim.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    (I forget the exact name... Caffeines maybe?)

    Caffeinds. Or Caffiends, can't remember. Not that great but always open and waitstaff would wander around desultorily with lost plates of nachos until you gave up and just claimed them as yours.

    Four or five of us braved a late night fish and chip shop stuck away in the corner of the square. It looked iffy, but it literally was the only option

    Either the Cat's Pyjamas or the Doghouse. Cat's food was marginally worse but it'd be a close call. Doghouse was staffed by uni students and the source of some of the best OMG food hygiene stories I've ever heard.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Richard Llewellyn,

    Gosh, so many memorable meals to consider .... its a time and place thing isn't it?

    A fish-burger at the old Roys Takeaways at the end of Courteney Place after a few too many pints of lager

    A midnight curry in Brick Lane (funnily enough, after a few too many pints of lager)

    The degustation menu at Tetsuyas in Sydney (mmmmmm) complete with matching wine

    A Saturday morning pie in the park with the kids from Muzza's in Mt Albert (great pies)

    Fresh scallops and oysters in the Picton Sounds while on a holiday (eaten within a few minutes of being caught)

    The Sydney Rocks Guinness and Oyster festival any year

    Fresh grilled corn dripping with butter from any road-side stall in Thailand

    I've also got a very fond memory of a meal in North India which involved freshly baked bread and freshly caught fish rewarding a positively ravenous hunger .......

    Mt Albert • Since Nov 2006 • 399 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    -- Any number of feeds of whitebait, fresh out of the river and fried with a little egg, when I was a kid in Greymouth. It is quite possible I will never taste anything like that again in my life. (I told Anthony Bourdain that the whitebait his friends had smuggled to Sydney for him wasn't really fresh enough enough to be the real thing, and he gave me a dirty look.)

    -- Burgers from the White Lady and Al & Pete's, back in the old days.

    -- A fish curry at a hawker centre in Singapore in 1989, fetched up for me by an old bloke, who I chatted to while I ate it. It was day one of five years' OE. Breakfast had actually been my first meal on foreign soil, but this one felt like it. And it was delicious.

    -- Dinner at the Curry Club in London, with its plain decor and formica tables, and my friends. Mmmm ... green chilli bajis. (Also, various meals at the Golden Curry in Clapham North. Everyone has their favourite London curry house, and this was ours. They even sent us Christmas cards!)

    -- Two Christmas lunches in London, cooked by Sue and Janis, later of Cafe Astoria fame. Christmas far from home is always better, especially when dessert is psychoactive.

    -- Any number of tables groaning with dishes for parties at our house. I don't have Che's finesse, but I do know how to make a whole lot of food appear at once and have people like it. I find preparing big feasts quite meditative.

    -- A lunch at Prego with Finlay Macdonald that went on for about five hours. I had the whole snapper, we talked about every bloody thing under the sun, including our dead Dads, and we both sincerely appreciated the fact that the Schlumberger pinot gris was on special.

    -- Dinner at Kai in the City with the other Webstock speakers last year. It was the first time I had muttonbird (like lamb with anchovies) and the first time most of those present had encountered Maori food and culture. It felt good.

    -- Lunch with the young staff of Augen Vietnam on my visit there this year. It was just the staff canteen, but it was a banquet, the kids were alright, and I was so happy to be there.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    Any number of tables groaning with dishes for parties at our house. I don't have Che's finesse, but I do know how to make a whole lot of food appear at once and have people like it. I find preparing big feasts quite meditative.

    i'm calling bullshit on that quote.

    that PA christmas dinner you and your darling put on one was absolutelyfuckingfantastic.

    even if i did turn up late.

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

  • Richard Llewellyn,

    Dinner at the Curry Club in London, with its plain decor and formica tables, and my friends.

    Actually, thats probably much closer to the mark, its not just the time, the place and the hunger that maketh the memorable meal, its the company.

    Mt Albert • Since Nov 2006 • 399 posts Report Reply

  • Richard Llewellyn,

    Oh, and I have to put in a mention for the Mandola cafe in Westbourne Grove, featuring very fine Nth African cuisine at student prices. Compulsory eating on a weekly basis.

    And the first hangi I helped on, which meant ripping down the curtains of a friend's place when we realised we had no wet sacking to pack it all down with. Thankfully it all worked just fine.

    The foods of childhood summers always stick in my mind too, juicy stone fruit and berries, cherry pip spitting competitions, fresh peas eaten straight out of the pod. Hmmmmm. getting hungry now.

    Mt Albert • Since Nov 2006 • 399 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    Interesting that most stories involve eating away from home. Does anyone have a tale involving a really amazing bowl of Weetbix they had for breakfast one morning. (I don't!)

    My memorable food-related moments:

    * Ireland, 2003. Driving with the whanau down the coast to this little seaside village where the B&B lady said there was a good restaurant. We arrive, expecting a greasy spoon diner. I turns out to be a really nice restaurant with a good varied menu. I order some fajitas and they arrive with the usual sizzling-plate extravagance. Best fajitas I've ever had. (And funnily enough, a friend of mine also had a good experience with Mexicali food in Ireland.)

    * Maui, Hawaii, 1991. At the Dole pineapple plantation on a tour. It's all a bit touristy, but then came the bit where they gave us some pineapple to eat. It was fresh off the plant and I had a total mouthgasm. Best pineapple ever. Kind of ruined all other pineapple for me.

    * Village 8, Hamilton, 1996. Watching a movie, I was about halfway through a box of popcorn. I picked up one piece and put it in my mouth. Somehow it was the perfect combination of popcorn, fake butter and salt. I almost groaned in pleasure. The rest of the bucket was shit, though.

    * An abandoned mattress showroom, Mt Wellington, 2006. I was filming there with my team for the 48Hours film competition. We'd been working hard all day and we were hungry. Someone had ordered some shitty pizza - the kind with the evil cheese-filled dough. It arrived and I was so hungry I just picked up the neared slice to me and ate it. It was the best thing ever. That pizza got in my mouf fast.

    * Waikato Uni student union cafe thing, 1996. I had a hazelnut latte and for the first time I realised that coffee didn't have to be instant and could be quite enjoyable.

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • Grant McDougall,

    Caffeinds. Or Caffiends, can't remember. Not that great but always open and waitstaff would wander around desultorily with lost plates of nachos until you gave up and just claimed them as yours.

    Caffiends. A mate of mine whose now a teacher in Chch use to work there in the early-mid '90s. At the same time used to work at The Percolator (owner - one David Parker and wife), Dunedin's first "proper" cafe, as in it having a espresso machine, etc, etc...

    We used to swop stories about the perils / hassles / weird stuff you'd see / experience while working in a cafe.

    Dunedin • Since Dec 2006 • 760 posts Report Reply

  • FletcherB,

    -- Burgers from the White Lady and Al & Pete's, back in the old days.

    Al & Petes, sure.... but the White Lady? Really?

    On more than one or two occasions, after packing out from gig and being within close proximity to the white lady (and in one case only 3 doors away) we chose to drive to the Newmarket Diner, such was our distaste for the Fort St product....

    I know appreciation of the food is often more to do with your own state of mind than the actual vitals on offer, but I dont ever recall eating from the white lady and not being dissapointed.

    West Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 893 posts Report Reply

  • Ben Austin,

    I was inducted into the society of home made baked beans for breakfast at a place called Uncle's on Portobello Road, although i've been instructed that it is nothing compared to the Goldburne Deli just up the road about 5 minutes. Sadly their breakfast menu finishes at 12 sharp and I can never scare up the motivation to get there in time. Their sandwiches are divine however.

    Found this site for those of you nostalgic about London. Basically the site seems to have taken a whole bunch of photos of street frontages, mapping the shops to photos.

    London • Since Nov 2006 • 1027 posts Report Reply

  • kmont,

    As a seven year old I ate a very memorable coconut pancake. I was on a small boat crossing over from a small island in Fiji back to the mainland. On the trip over there were giant waves, I remember them being at least three times as high as the boat ; ) and I was very sick. For the return trip our host had packed us some delicious coconut pancakes which I doubted I would be able to hold down. I stayed above deck this time and found my sea legs, I was so proud of myself. I had forgotten about the pancakes and then I found them in my bag! The joy of food you forgot you had.
    Best. Pancake. Ever.

    I also particularly enjoyed surrepticiously stashing sushi into a lunch box at a high class sushi resturant. My dining partner and I had previously pleaded unsuccessfully to be allowed to doggy bag our uneaten sushi. Apparantly this is out of the question because of food hygiene laws. I watched my compainion argue in that infinitely polite Japanese manner with the master of the resturant. "Absolutely not possible, deeply sorry sir etc", says the master. But my compainion was determined and judging by his flushed cheeks, quietly drunk. Once the master's back is turned, out comes the bento box and about 10 pieces of sushi disappear into it. Upon turning around it is clear what we have done but it would be undignified to mention it. The next time we go out for sushi it is in an even swankier place. We cross a small man-made stream to a private tatami room with a kimono clad attendant who brings us multiple courses, she barely makes a sound as she enters the room to clear dishes and replenish drinks. This time we don't bother asking, and several times the bento box has to be hastily hidden under the table and giggles stiffeled.

    wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 485 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    I was inducted into the society of home made baked beans for breakfast

    Ohmigod, this reminds me of Boston Beans & Bacon - pork belly, a truckload of beans & not much else. You cook it for about 5 days & it is unbelievable!

    Although... you will experience "wind".

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Alec Morgan,

    We’ll leave the perfect meal out of this for now. The ‘White Lady’ when Pete Washer cooked regularly in late 70s was a sure thing, kept many a V8 driver from a total liquid ’n speed diet. Bathtub crank in those days not your tricksy P. These were nights when Murray Cammick, known to some around here, prowled with his SLR, eventually producing “Flash Cars” a photo forum exhibition at Airdale St.
    The perfect combo of crisply toasted buttered bun, sweet fried onions, beefy tomato, fresh lettuce and made in trailer peppery mince patty, sounds easy, and it is easy–to get such an elemental munch wrong!–this rarely happened at the ’Lady in my considerable experience.
    It could be a bovine scene if you lingered, one fellow cruiser regularly ordered, and was served, a burger containing “triple egg, triple meat, no salad” which would possibly have the owner investigated these days.

    Tokerau Beach • Since Nov 2006 • 124 posts Report Reply

  • Neil Morrison,

    First year at uni. 17 and straight from mums place in Henderson to a flat in Aro valley with little more than a black jersey, pair of Levis and a telecaster. Complete with all the social skills to be acquired from a Henderson upbringing needed to survive in the big world – some facility with motorbike mechanics and the ability to play a passable rendition of the lead break in Stairway to Heaven.

    My cooking skills included the ability to open cans.

    Given the intellectual and socialist tendencies of my newly acquired flatmates, cooking was organised along classic flat lines – a roster where everyone cooked at least once a week. This was all new to me.

    Now I’m not saying that my cooking skills would have been greatly better had some friends and I not scored some very nice hash but looking back I don’t think it helped.

    I’m still on good terms with 3 out of 4 of my flatmates but they generously overlook what must be one of the worst meals I have cooked and they have ever eaten.

    Admittedly the cupboard was a bit bare. It most likely had been my turn to do some grocery shopping but for some time it had difficult to organise much because of the already mentioned purchase.

    But there was rice and cabbage. Which in the hands of some one like Jamie Oliver who wasn’t stoned would have been more than enough to whip up a culinary delight.

    But in my defense I did go for simplicity – boiled rice with boiled cabbage.

    Funnily enough I did get to spend some time in the home of boiled food – Normandy. If the produce is fresh then a meal of boiled meat, carrots, cabbage and potatoes can be a real treat. But that cooking lesson was a bit late for a certain group of young students looking forward to a nice hot meal on one of those Wellington evenings which even though cold and windy still has a touch of magic about it.

    Since Nov 2006 • 932 posts Report Reply

  • Ben Austin,

    The less said about first meals cooked as a student the better. Partially cooked roast chicken/mince surprise still gives me nightmares!

    London • Since Nov 2006 • 1027 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    But in my defense I did go for simplicity – boiled rice with boiled cabbage.

    neil, did we flat together here in wellington?

    because that is sounding very, very familiar :)

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Heh. I had a flatmate who was a devotee of only cooking things for as long as they needed. Ie, vegetables only need a few minutes stit frying or boiling right?

    Right.

    And rice & potatoes are vegetables right?

    She liked them crunchy (translation - uncooked) & nothing we could say would convince her otherwise.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

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