Hippopotamus Restaurant at the Museum Hotel, Wellington, New Zealand

Have you ever dined alone at dinner?

It always feels a little disarming dining without company, and often the biggest barrier is the self-conscious worry about what other people will think about you, the Nigel No Mates in the corner.

Presumably this is why room service exists, so business travellers (and yes, cooped-in couples) can order food to be eaten in bed in front of a flickering television. Me? I'd rather enjoy the ambience of the dining room, even if I am dining alone.

Nevertheless, I arm myself with brochures and a notebook--just so I can look busy and distracted if necessary--on my way up to the Hippopotamus restaurant, the in-house restaurant at the Museum Hotel where I'm staying in Wellington.


The menu boards

There's no need for distraction. The view is mesmerising enough, a lookout over Wellington Harbour that is all twinkling lights and gently bobbing boats on the water. The decor is as luxe and opulent as the rest of the hotel, with wide columns, heavy burgundy curtains, a French side table, large paintings, ornate mirrors, crisp white tablecloths and tan suede chairs. The colour scheme reminds me of autumn, its crimson and russet hues adding a sense of elegance.

I love the menu boards too, which are wooden frames covered with a printed canvas on the back, the paper menus tucked in on the other side. Little hippopotamus figures dot the room, adding a playfulness, and when I ask about the origins of the restaurant name, I expect a funny story or a personal anecdote from the restaurant owner. Instead I find out that the hotel ran a naming competition - Hippopotamus was one of the entries and chosen because it was so unusual, especially for a French restaurant!

Executive Chef Laurent Loudeac started in October 2007, and has been credited with turning the hotel restaurant into a fine dining destination in itself. His experience is long and varied, including a two-year stints as a sous chef at Sydney's Forty One. The menu has a strong French focus with a specialty in rotisseur meats including tournedos de boeuf (200g beef fillet NZ$45), cote de bouef (400gm rib of beef NZ$45) and a steak d'autruche (200g ostric steak NZ$40).


Amuse bouche: duck liver parfait with onion confit

The special $65 three-course Wellington on a Plate menu is too hard to pass up, espeically as it includes a glass of wine as well. I'm impressed too that there's a choice from three starters, three mains and five desserts.

An amuse bouche starts proceedings, a buttery biscuit topped with onion confit and a quenelle of duck liver parfait. Its burst of sweet and salty flavours whets the appetite.


Murdoch James Pinot Noir 2007

The Murdoch James Pinot Noir has plenty of berry fruits with a hint of spiciness. The wine list is extremely thorough, a 16-page mini-book that lists 89 wines by country of origin: three pages from France, six pages from New Zealand, and one page from Australia.


Snail and mushroom
with cream sauce in a puff pastry case with truffle foam

The smell of buttery pastry hits me as soon as my snail and mushroom entree arrives. It's intoxicating and I'm sure the entire restaurant can smell it. Truffle foam adds delicacy to the puff pastry case filled with six snails swaddled in a creamy sauce. The sauce has a wonderful umami meatiness to it, enhancing the flavour of snails that is so often overwhelmed when served with the usual garlic butter. The puff pastry hat is crisp and flaky.


Lemon and lime sorbet with limoncello

A palate cleanser of lemon and lime sorbet with limoncello is light and refreshing with impressively fine ice crystals.


Beef fillet rossini topped with foie gras

Beef fillet rossini is cooked to perfection. The meat is reassuringly pink inside, tender and juicy. A richness of the foie gras cube is echoed by the circle of bread on the bottom, cooked in fat fat so the juices are absorbed, making it more like a pancake in consistency.


Mache salad leaves

A bowl of mache salad leaves, also known as lambs lettuce, is needed to offset the heaviness of the beef. The characterically soft and buttery leaves have a sweet and slightly nutty taste, a simple splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar is all that is required to bring out their best.


Crepes Suzette trolley

I'd spied the Crepes Suzette trolley when I'd first arrived, and can't wait to order it for dessert. The traditional preparation of Crepes Suzette at the restaurant dining table is something I'd only read about or seen on television!


Crepes Suzette ingredients

Maitre'd Timothee Lepoutre, who'd been attentive all evening, trundles over the trolley with a smile. Whoosh goes the flame on the portable gas burner, and soon he's caramelising sugar in the pan with solemn efficiency.


Adding butter after caramelising the sugar

Once the sugar becomes a golden toffee, he melts a pat of butter and then slides in the prepared crepes, already folded into quarters.


Cooking the crepes in the orange juice syrup

Fresh orange juice is poured in, and then a generous glug of Grand Marnier which is set alight to burn off the alcohol.


Flambeing the crepes


Table service!

I love the spectacle of the event, and there's a great sense of luxury and decadence having your dessert cooked personally at the table.


Crepes Suzette traditionnelle with
Coteaux du Layon 2006 $11 by the glass

It also means your crepes couldn't be any fresher, served piping hot from the pan to your plate and onto the table within seconds. There was a lovely taste of orange rind in the crepes with the occasional crunch of toffee. Fresh orange segments and a scoop of vanilla ice cream add refreshment.


Earl Grey tea

I like a good tea cup, and the gold-rimmed floral cup and saucer is an appropriately refined way to finish the evening.

And after dinner, I couldn't help but explore the rest of the hotel, roaming the different floors and admiring the artworks, furniture and funky wallpapers.


Quirky elephant chair and matching table

I stepped into the ground floor bathrooms near the apartment lifts and thought I'd stepped into a wedding reception, entranced by the sheer organza curtains in gold and the two chandeliers above!


The apartment lobby womens bathroom


Museum Hotel lobby - loved the velvet textured wallpaper


Chandelier in the lobby

Grab Your Fork dined as a guest of the Hippopotamus Restaurant, and was hosted by Positively Wellington Tourism for Wellington on a Plate. For more information on Wellington, check out http://www.wellingtonnz.com.

Wellington on a Plate ran from 17-30 August 2009. Next year's festival dates have already been confirmed as 14-29 August 2010.


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Hippopotamus Restaurant & Bar
Level 3, Museum Hotel
90 Cable Street, Wellington, New Zealand
Tel: +64 (04) 802 8935

Opening hours:
Breakfast
Monday to Friday 7am - 10.30am
Saturday and Sunday 7am - 11am

Lunch
Monday to Friday 12pm - 2pm

Dinner
Monday to Saturday 6pm - 10.30pm

Schoc Chocolates at Ciocco Chocolaterie, Wellington, New Zealand

"I'm going to Wellington!" I told Divemummy.

"So you're going to Schoc?" she'd replied at once.

The last time I'd visited Wellington, my Schoc Chocolate tablet souvenirs had been a huge hit. It's not just the pleasant bitter cocoa of the dark chocolate, or the smooth sweetness of the milk, but the fact that the tablets comes in 60 different flavour varieties sends the mind boggling and excites the tastebuds.


Ciocco Chocolaterie and Espresso Bar

The Schoc Chocolate sign at their downtown Wellington cafe has been changed to Ciocco Chocolaterie and Espresso Bar although the set-up remains the same. At the back of the store is the chocolate shop, a glass display counter filled with handmade chocolates and shelves of chocolate tablets lined up against the wall.


Schoc Chocolates counter


Kiwifruit vodka chocolates


Martinborough Vineyard 2004 Pinot Noir

I'm more interested in the tablets than the handmade chocolates, a cacophony of flavours that don't seem possible with chocolate. I'm talking white chocolate with cardamom, milk chocolate with sea salt and dark chocolate with geranium, lemongrass, smoked paprika or sweet basil.


Schoc Chocolate tablets NZ$9.90 (at the Wellington City Markets - to be posted shortly!)

Unfortunately many of the flavours I'm after are sold out, but I do manage to get my hands on pink peppercorn milk, sea salt milk, lime chilli dark, tangerine dark, Earl Grey tea dark and toasted sesame dark.


Orange and brown espresso cups

The cafe at the front of the store has a similarly intriguing dark hot chocolate menu, one that includes chilli, lavendar, orange, cardamom, tangerine and peppermint. There's one white chocolate version in cardamom orange but I order the Earl Grey tea dark instead.

I watch as the barista grabs a huge white bucket from beneath the counter and scoops out a hunk of chocolate paste.

"Would you like a spoonful?" he asks with a knowing smile.

I nod, and then add "and can I take a photo?"


Chocolate ganache

It's like a thick chocolate ganache, deep and rich and velvety and melting lazily on the tongue.


Earl Grey tea dark hot chocolate $5.00

The Earl Grey tea flavour comes from a bottle but you wouldn't know it from the taste. The Earl Grey tea dark hot chocolate is sweet and cocoa-y with the citrus tones of bergamot coming through. It's deeply satisfying, a chocolate hit without any cloying sweetness.

My stomach lined with chocolate goodness, I find myself at the Museum of Wellington less than 30 minutes later, ready to partake in the Big Wine & Cheese, a wine and cheese matching class conducted by Feast & Vine as part of Wellington on a Plate.


Wine and cheese matching class

Whilst I've attended a number of wine tastings before, it's the first time I've attended a wine and cheese pairing class. The purpose of the evening was to taste the wines, as well as understand how different wines can be used to match and enhance various cheeses.

1. Brunton Road Gisborne Chardonnay 2008 matched with Kaimai havarti
2. Chardonnay matched with a Kaimai washed rouge
3. Anchorage Nelson Pinot Noir 2008 matched with Kaimai brie
4. Lava Rock Northland Syrah 2008 matched with Kaimai mature cheddar
5. Wishart Dessert Hawke's Bay Merlot New Vintage matched with Kaimai crumbly blue

The act of matching wines and cheeses added a new dimension to each, amplifying their flavours. It was actually quite fascinating to see how the acidity of different wines affected the sharpness, creamines or saltiness of the cheeses. We tasted the recommended pairings and were then encouraged to mix up the pairings to see what happened. This tended to create quite strange flavour combinations, and reinforced the logic of the recommended pairing. The impact of different matchings did remind me a little of our flavour tripping party with miracle fruit tablets - you weren't quite sure what the cheese would taste like with different wines.

We were reminded that everyone does has a unique palate with varying taste sensitivities and flavour preferences. There was also some discussion about what made a good match - apparently chefs usually try to complement the flavours of the wine and the cheese so there's a common theme running between the two; wine people often prefer to do a deliberate contrast so the wine and the cheese are each more pronounced in flavour.



Suggested overall guidelines to pairing wines and cheeses:

• Soft cheeses, like brie and camembert go well with light fruity reds and whites (or an aged red if the cheese has been aged)
• Hard cheeses, like cheddar, gouda, emmenthal and gruyere go well with mature Bordeaux, Cotes due Rhome and full body chardonnays
• Blue cheeses, like stilton and gorgonzola, go well with sweet wines such as Sauternes, Barsac and ports.

Grab Your Fork attended the The Big Wine & Cheese as a guest of Positively Wellington Tourism for Wellington on a Plate. Schoc Chocolates was visited anonymously and paid for personally. For more information on Wellington, check out http://www.wellingtonnz.com.

Wellington on a Plate runs from 17-30 August 2009. Next year's festival dates have already been confirmed as 14-29 August 2010.


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Ciocco Chocolaterie and Espresso Bar
11 Tory Street, Wellington, New Zealand
Tel: +64 (04) 382 8907

Opening hours:
Monday to Friday 7.30am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm
Sunday 12pm - 5pm

Standard delivery charge to Australia is $NZ19. Rest of the world is $NZ50.

Related Grab Your Fork posts:
Schoc Chocolates, Wellington 2007

Open seven days a week, 9am - 5.30pm

The Weta Cave and Cafe Polo, Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand

Precioussss...... my precioussss

It's hard to think about New Zealand without remembering the dramatic scenery from The Lord of the Rings. And whilst downtown Wellington is perfectly compact and flat for the tourist on foot, you will need wheels to take in the more dramatic ocean views and ascend the steep hills around the city.


The Plate-mobile

Enter the Plate-mobile. After completing the behind-the-scenes tour of Floriditas Bakery, I met up with Brad from Positively Wellington Tourism for a scenic drive in the company car temporarily embellished with Wellington on a Plate stickers. It was only a few minutes on the road before we hit crystal clear stretches of water, steep cliffs, lush green hills and pretty pastel cottages along the beach.

And along the way Brad pointed out the coolest thing I saw in Wellington...


Personal cable cars!

Yes personal cable cars! Because many houses sit on top of steep hills and downtown Wellington is in the valley below, some people have installed their own cable car which is used to get themselves and their shopping bags home without a car.

Apparently some people will share a cable car with their neighbour if they're closeby, but the maintenance is quite expensive, and they need to be serviced at least once a year. We passed at least a dozen sets of cable car tracks, but I think the biggest track is this one:


Giant cable car track

Imagine the friends you'd make at school with your own cable car ride!


Weta Cave

Our travels took us the Weta Cave in Miramar, the free mini-museum that features props, costumes, weapons and merchandise from the movies Weta has worked on over the years. Its project history is impressive, most notably the Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Samurai, Master & Commander, Hell Boy, Heavenly Creatures, The Frighteners and the soon-to-be-released Avatar (in production).


The Samaritan - Hellboy's Gun from Hell Boy 2004

A free 20-minute behind-the-scenes video screens every half hour in the theatrette. It's a fascinating look at the range and depth of skills and expertise found within the Weta Workshop. The company is involved with conceptual design, costuming, props, weapons, make-up and special effects. There are specialists in bronze casting, prosthetics (using foam latex, gelatin and silicon), sculpting, miniature model making, 3D printing, painting, hammered armour and chainmaille.

The deliberately low-budget video is charming in its humility, presented by Weta co-founders Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, Tania Rodger and Jamie Selkirk but featuring plenty of footage of genuinely happy and laughing staff.


Lord of the Rings Collectibles

More than 185 different Lord of the Rings collectable sculptures were produced - they are now completely sold out.


Peregrin Took, Bilbo Baggins and Meriadoc Brandybuck collectable sculptures


Gimli puppet - used as a double for Gimli in
Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring
when he is in the boat going down the River Anduin


Gollum

We stop for lunch at Cafe Polo, only a few streets away. It's a buzzy cafe that's overflowing with couples and families. Brad gets the Wellington on a Plate $25 set-menu (two courses with a glass of wine and tea/coffee) whilst I order from the lunch menu.


Cream of cauliflower soup with Olivo porcini-infused
extra virgin olive oil (from Martinborough)

The cream of cauliflower soup is silky smooth with a deliciously nutty flavour. There's a lovely sense of richness without it being too overly heavy.


Homemade potato gnocchi with blue cheese,
roast portobello mushrom and baby spinach

Homemade potato gnocchi nubs have been boiled and then pan-fried to a golden caramelised edge. The dab of blue cheese nestled on top is not overly strong, and disappointingly not swirled throughout the sauce. A giant roasted portobello mushroom adds a fragrant earthiness to the dish.


Porkpie Ploughman's Platter $16

I've gone for the Ploughman's Platter with a homemade pork pie. The pork pies are made by co-owner Valentina Dias' other company, Pudding Lane.


Inside the pork pie

The cold pork pie is a rich parcel of thick pastry encasing cooked pork set with pork jelly. I'm not normally used to eating such a large portion of pork pie - usually a wedge or two is all I can manage. I can only eat a quarter, although my rather large breakfast from that morning may have also had something to do with it.

I do dig into the locally-made Kapiti Tuteremoana mature cheddar which has a lovely crumbly texture and bite. It goes well with the thick slices of homemade bread, pickled onions, dill pickle and the sweet tang of onion relish.


Chocolate coconut rough

I'm impressed by the biscuits and slices in the window, all of which look homemade. "Oh yes, we make them all in our kitchen," co-owner and chef David Thurlow confirms.

"We don't get that in Sydney," I lament to Brad. Too often, it seems, Sydney cafes are filled with the same drudgery of desserts trucked in en-masse. It's something I find increasingly endearing about Wellington - that everyone seems to take such pride in everything they do, from the locally-sourced food to the homemade desserts to the hand-picked quirky furnishings in so many cafes, bistros and restaurants.


Lemon slice (halved)

We grab dessert to takeaway, sharing a lemon slice and nabbing a chocolate afghan each. At Floriditas, we were told that chocolate afghans are their biggest selling line by far. The rest of the tour attendees, all Kiwis, nodded in agreement. "Err... what's a chocolate afghan again?" I'd asked Julie.


Chocolate afghan

Chocolate afghans, it becomes apparent, are the national biscuit of New Zealand. Aussies have Anzac biscuits; the Kiwis have chocolate afghans. I make sure I get my hands on a homemade Chocolate Afghan to try one for myself.

It's a soft chunky chocolate biscuit with surprise pockets of crunch from the cornflakes mixed throughout. A dollop of chocolate icing and a walnut is apparently essential. The icing adds sweetness, tempered by the slight bitterness of the walnut.

I also quite like the lemon slice, the lemon topping like a tangy cooked lemon curd on a light biscuit base.

Time to dig out the trusty Edmonds Cookery Book and whip up my own chocolate afghans soon!


Wellington on a Plate runs from 17-30 August 2009. Next year's festival dates have already been confirmed as 14-29 August 2010.

Grab Your Fork dined at Cafe Polo as a guest of Positively Wellington Tourism for Wellington on a Plate. For more information on Wellington, check out http://www.wellingtonnz.com.




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Cafe Polo
84 Rotherham Terrace, Miramar
(corner of Para Street)
Wellington, New Zealand
Tel: +64 (04) 380 7273

Opening hours:
Breakfast and lunch
Monday + Wednesday to Saturday from 8am
Sunday from 9am

Dinner
Wednesday to Saturday from 5.30pm

Closed on Tuesdays


View The Weta Group in a larger map

The Weta Cave
2 Weka Street
(corner of Camperdown Rd and Weka St)
Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand

Open seven days a week, 9am - 5.30pm