Mt Roskill Aussie Butcher, Fruit World and New World are all great.

My local supermarket, Mangere Bridge Supervalue, has fantastic acid-free tomatoes - those big pale red ones that taste of tomato - much cheaper than I've seen anywhere else, they are always available and haven't been chilled. I think they might be grown locally.

Grey Lynn Butcher has wonderful lamb, free range dry-cured bacon, free range pork sausages, rabbit, wallaby and venison.

The Onehunga fish shop sells pretty good filleted fish, and the Mangere Bridge fish shop sometimes has good looking whole snapper.

I've always assumed that the restaurateurs pay for their inclusion in the top fifty list. Is that not so? What other reason could there be for the inclusion of Monsoon Poon and The Java Room, both of which serve dull, prissy "Asian Fusion" in uncomfortable surroundings.

And as for The Engine Room - the night I went there (never again) I received a Wiener Schnitzel that was cold, soggy and partly burned and the maitresse d' was surly.