SIMON and Ross and that other bloke? Small time. The biggest name in reality TV – okay, the slightly smaller world of reality food TV in New Zealand is … ahem. Pause for modest cough and look down, blush … Me. Well, me and Matt from the Westmere Organic Butchery and Tom from the Auckland Seafood Market and Andy from the Cable Bay Winery and Wouter from the Sofitel in Queenstown.

You won’t find us on the covers of the glossy mags or the gossip pages of the Sunday papers or the recipe pages in the food sections. But the five of us held the future of five Dutch couples in our hands – or our knives and forks – on a hot summer’s afternoon at a Waiheke winery.

It started about six weeks ago when an email dropped into my inbox from a very nice chap called Wibke at Tourism NZ.

Wibke was co-ordinating an arrangement between our tourist promotion folk and Endemol, the hugely successful Netherlands machine that creates reality TV programmes like Big Brother and I’m A Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here! , and approximately 7000 similar concepts that I’ve never seen but you may have.

Wibke had asked around and a woman who I’d worked with about 30 years ago on another planet (Hamilton) had suggested a bloke called Ewan who might be able to suggest some people in the cuisine trade around Auckland, or have some ideas about food and wine.

I do have many ideas about food. I also have many ideas about wine. So, when the Dutch end of the arrangement flew to New Zealand a couple of months ago to do a recce (see, one afternoon and I know all the terms), we had a pleasant chat in a flash hotel about Kiwi cuisine and wine and places to film the contestants cooking NZ-style meals and who would make good judges.

Jo from Tourism NZ’s London office, came with them, and we briefed the Hollandaise about Kiwi cuisine: sausage rolls, shepherd’s pie, shrimp cocktails, roast leg of lamb, pikelets, scones with jam and cream.

We spoke about the bespoke food shops in Auckland where the contestants might buy ingredients for the meal they’d have to cook on camera. And then Jo shouted a round of drinks. Mac’s Gold, I said. The Dutch – four of ‘em – went for mineral waters. Which is not what you’d expect from television folk, if you believe the gossip pages and glossy mags.

I should tell you what this show was to be about. I’ve pointed out it was a Dutch reality TV show. And I mean Dutch. Not English. I have a handle on French, a smattering of Italian, and a morsel of Turkish, but slap a Dutch menu in front of me and I’d starve. Not to mention the winelist. What’s Dutch for chianti?

It was to be called – and for the next few paragraphs I am quoting from the official Tourism NZ official here – Herman’s Kookieland. The translation supplied was “Herman goes to New Zealand” but I suspect they might have been taking the proverbial, or whatever they call that in Amsterdam.

“Herman Den Blijker is described as a mixture of the hardness of Gordon Ramsey, the kindness of Jamie Oliver – but with the knowledge of a real head chef. He has been a judge on a programme similar to Hell’s Kitchen in the Netherlands , and is a regular face on tv – as the main personality on nine different tv series since between 2006 and 2010. He also has authored several cook books, and has two restaurants in Rotterdam.”

For this show, “More and more Dutchmen and women are playing with the idea of leaving Holland behind for a completely different life somewhere abroad. Among them are many people that dream of living and working in New Zealand .

“Herman den Blijker and hotelier Mr. Reimers meet up with 10 such enthusiastic persons (5 chefs and 5 maitres) and gives them some mouth-watering news: he’s found a beautiful hotel that looks for a chef and a maitre at a wonderful location in New Zealand , the country so many people want to emigrate to. The candidates that show the most talent apart, but also as a team will win the jobs.

“For the contestants the trip will be a tough and intense battle, full of twists and turns but also a journey of culinary discovery, with produce and recipes unique to New Zealand tried and tested along the way.

“The couples/persons compete against one another in a series of different tasks. They’re tested on all aspects of the business, from cooking ability to business instinct, teamwork, customer knowledge and hospitality. They get to know this beautiful, but to them unfamiliar, country. And we’ll be testing them on their ability to make themselves at home here, to adapt to the local customs.”

The winners, of course, get the green cards, or whatever we call them here.

You can see the attraction for our tourism folk. Money couldn’t buy several weeks of exposure for our food, wine, adventure and luxury tourism industries on primetime TV in Europe. Especially our money, against the euro.

I was involved in the first episode, an overview of Auckland and its food, and wine, and gourmet shops. The couples were given a couple of days, an envelope of cash, and several likely addresses. They could go to this fruit and vege place, or that seafood market, or an organic butchery. They had to buy the ingredients in Auckland one morning and cook their Kiwi-style meal for the five judges on 0Waiheke that afternoon.

It was supposed to be a gentle warm-up. Not an Elimination Challenge. No one would be voted off the island (neither Waiheke, nor the North Island). That would start on the next day, and Carly from Tourism NZ would have to ferry the first losers from the Coromandel to Auckland Airport. Two hours in a very small car with a lot of gear that they would have been expecting, or at the very least hoping, to use over the ensuing (or, as it would unfold, not ensuing) four weeks.

Which is what brought me, and Matt, and Tom, and Wouter, and Carly, and Wibke, to the Waiheke ferry dock on a Wednesday afternoon. Carly had made a sign which said, “Dutch Reality TV Show, Meet Here”, to avoid that embarrassing moment when people who’ve never met one another are milling around on a wharf looking for people they’ve only spoken to on email and don’t have a clue what they look like or how to contact them.

Unless they have one another’s cellphone numbers and txt the person standing right next to them. Which is when I discovered that Wibke is not a boy’s name.

TO BE CONTINUED

KICK BACK for the latest ramblings. If you’re struggling to connect with the writer’s trail of thoughts, a decent Chianti should help connect the dots. It’s what fuels the whole shooting-match. Locked, loaded, ready? Here we go.

First to Spain, or more correctly Catalunya, where Ferran Adrià, celebrated for turtledove with blackberry caviar and duck foie gras candies, has decided to permanently close his famously experimental elBulli restaurant.

The palace of deconstructed degustation holds three Michelin stars and has been Restaurant magazine’s top of the pots for four years. You’re probably too late to phone for a table: elBulli will open for six months this year and next, closing in December 2011, and the ballot of 2 million wannabe diners for this year’s 8000 lucky dinners has been drawn.

The great chef’s reasons seem as whimsical as his food. Last month he told an international culinary conference that he would shut the doors temporarily in 2012 and 2013 due to the difficulties of working 15 hours a day (and, presumably, not being able to charge 15% surcharge on public holidays).

Now he says it’s because he and his business partner, Juli Soler, have been losing $NZ975,000 a year on the restaurant and cooking workshop in Barcelona. He plans to establish a new culinary academy and to fund scholarships.

Foams, schmoams. I wouldn’t mind having a chat with Adria – preferably over a 30-course dinner with accompanying Catalan wines and cheeses, preferably not deconstructed – because I have an idea about where he went wrong.

“So, Ferran … you don’t mind if I call you Ferry, do you? … you’re not a cook, you’re an artist, right? Like Picasso, like Dali.

“So why did you change a perfectly good name, El Bulli, to elBulli, a couple of years back? Sounds like PostBank or KiwiRail. Has it all been downhill from there?”

“And the cookbook. You held hands with a supermarket chain and did a cook-at-home book with store-bought chicken, mayo and potato chips? Just a tad Jamie Oliver, Ferry.”

MOVING ON … Britwell Salome, home to 200 people in the Chiltern Hills near Oxford, looks rather like the sort of English chocolate-box village that should feature in one of those gentle Sunday-night thrillers like The Midsomer Murders, possibly because it does. Over the past few weeks it’s become the setting for another, peculiarly English, mystery.

For Britwell Salome’s other claim to fame is its Michelin-star gastro-pub, The Goose. It was just another village pub 10 years ago, until Chris Barber, former chef to the Prince of Wales, bought it and decided to try serving something more than pies and mushy peas. Barber moved on and his young sous-chef Michael North took over. He was awarded the gold star five years ago, on his 26th birthday.

Fast-forward to this year’s Michelin announcements in January, and The Goose – now with 27-year-old Ryan Simpson in the kitchen – retained its ranking. For a whole three weeks: he and his brigade downed pinnies when the current owner, Paul Castle, told him his food was “too poncey”.

Castle said the restaurant wasn’t viable, and instead of muntjac roasted in hay it needed to serve food that local people wanted. “Pub grub.”

Simpson’s cooking “is fantastic but he should go back to Paris and play at cooking there. All I wanted was to be a local good food place. Ryan never even had steak on the menu. In a farming area, people want a hearty meal … I know what the locals want.”

Simpson replied, “He’s painting me as a pretentious chef who threw his toys out of the pram. That’s not true, I understand the business side, we had built a reputation and I wasn’t going to do burgers and baguettes.”

So what was on the menu at this village pub?

From the entrees:

Slow-poached Britwell hen’s egg with smoked pork belly, chicory, mustard $17.95

Pan-seared Lyme Bay scallops, with veal sweetbreads, butternut and date chutney, sherry vinegar jus, $29.15

From the mains:

Roast saddle of Yattendon Sika deer with spinach, potato, chanterelle mushrooms, huntsman’s sauce, $48.25

Angus beef fillet steak with chunky chips, sprout tops, spiced carrot $51.50

Dessert, madame?

Chocolate and olive oil truffle with banana, salted caramel and balsamic ripple ice cream

Carrot and cardamom panna cotta with carrot carpaccio, blood orange

$15.50 each.

See, despite what mine host says, Sir could have had his steak and chips, washed down with a decent claret. So what if it cost over fifty quid? Have you got any idea what it costs to fill the Range Rover these days?

Hat-tips: The Times, The Guardian

THEY gave it to the world. Possibly. And now they want it back. Definitely.
It’s the world’s best-known Italian dish, named after a town where it’s never served, and it travels under a French name.
“Travels” is the right word: if there’s one recipe for it, there are a million, just about none of them written down (though you’ll find four options later, and you might like to email yours to us). Every boy who’s ever picked up a frypan in a flat from Invercargill to Townsville, from Hamilton to Perth, has his own individual, never-fail, Friday-night formula for the perfect version.
Which is possibly why, according to The Times of London’s man in Rome, Italy has “begun a campaign to defend the reputation of one of its most famous but most widely abused exports”.
We are not talking about Ferraris or fashion or footballers here. Nor prosciutto or parmigiano or the Pope. Nor even chianti. We are chewing the fat about Spagbol. Spaghetti Bolognaise, as it’s best known, though that’s the Frenchified name. Spaghetti alla Bolognese as it will likely appear on the menu at your local pizza & pasta joint.
According to Richard Owen’s report, Coldiretti – the Italian farmers’ union – feels that when people around the world believe they are eating spaghetti bolognese, they are actually forking up “improbable concoctions” of tomato paste from a jar with a “remarkable variety” of ingredients, from meatballs or turkey to mortadella.
Which translates, if we’re still talking about Friday night in a flat in Hamilton, as luncheon sausage. Washed down with Waikato Green, probably, unless there just happens to be a brunello in the fridge.
Anyway, at the weekend, some 440 chefs in Italian restaurants in 50 countries from Malaysia to Turkey, Saudi Arabia to China made the authentic dish with instructions laid down in a recipe patented by the Bologna Chamber of Commerce in 1982.
Because they were being authentic, they served ragu – bolognese sauce if you must – with tagliatelle, not spaghetti, conforming to a 1972 “authentic recipe” which lays down that the flat egg noodles must be precisely 8mm wide.
Mario Caramella, of the Bali Hyatt Hotel in Indonesia and head of the Virtual Association of Italian Chefs, said: “If there is one dish in the Italian repertoire which is cooked worst than most, it is traditional bolognese sauce.”
Alessandro Circiello, of the Italian Federation of Chefs, cooks in Modena, near Bologna. “It is always the great classic recipes that are most mangled,” he told Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper. Too many cooks outside Italy tend to “throw a lot of cream and butter into dishes to cover up hidden blemishes”.
Perish the thought. Remind me not to invite Alessandro around for my infamous lemon and asparagus risotto.
This being Italy, of course, that’s when the arguments started.
Owen goes on to report Gianluigi Veronesi, a food writer, saying the world festival of bolognese sauce was too late “because frankly, they don’t even make it properly in Bologna any more”.
Ouch! That hurt. For Bologna is nicknamed “La grassa” – Fat City – because of the locals’ love of food and the quality of its ingredients and cuisine. It’s generally regarded as the capital of Cucina Italia. Unless, of course, you or your mother or your father’s grandfather came from Milano or Firenze or Napoli or Roma or Palermo, in which case Milano or Firenze or Napoli or Roma or …
The “traditional” 1982-registered recipe demands only beef, pancetta, onions, carrots, celery, tomato paste, meat stock, red wine, and either milk or cream. Even in Fat City, though, cooks have been known to use chopped pork, chicken or goose liver, prosciutto, mortadella, or porcini to enrich the sauce. Which is not, come to think of it, too far removed from the old Hamilton flat trick of dumping a can of mushrooms into the mix. Sorry, ragu.
And forget the Velluto Rosso. Traditionally white wine, not red, is used.
The reason that Spaghetti alla Bolognese never existed in Bologna is because the Bolognese (the people, not the dish), as mentioned earlier, serve the sauce with freshly made tagliatelle and their green lasagne. It was invented as a dash, not a full dish, of beef-mince sauce to go with those pastas. Spaghetti is a durum wheat pasta from Naples, ideal for that city’s ragu – a meat-flavoured, thick tomato sauce that clings much better to the thinner, slippery noodles.
Still, it’s the local variations of Spagbol that are rocking all over the world and – with almost al dente timing – a survey released on just about the same day as the great Bolognese meltdown revealed that the most common dish cooked by British mums was … oh, you guessed.
Merchant Gourmet’s survey found the average UK mother relies on just nine different meals to feed her family. Hectic modern-day lifestyles, fussy children and spouses who work long hours have all contributed to a lack of experimentation in planning a family meal. The survey also found that dinner time takes the average mother 35 minutes from start to finish, and four in 10 mothers play it safe by choosing meals they know their family like.
The top dinners? 1 Spaghetti Bolognaise, 2 Roast dinner, 3 Shepherd’s pie, 4 Pasta dish, 5 Meat and two veg, 6 Pizza, 7 Casserole/stew, 8 Sausages and chips/mash 9 Indian/curry.
Spagbol, pasta and pizza – that’s three out of nine for the Italians. Perhaps they should be proud, not precious, about their contributions to the world’s dinner tables. As we used to say in the flat in Hamilton on Friday nights, like it or lump it.

Spaghetti Bolognese – four ways

1 Like nonna used to make
Serves 4
300g minced best beef
150g bacon
50g yellow carrots
50g stick of celery
30g onion
5 tablespoons tomato sauce, or 20g tomato concentrate.
Half glass dry white wine
Cup of milk
A little stock
Chop bacon and fry gently with the chopped carrots, celery and onion. Add meat, wine and stock until they sizzle, then add tomato sauce and simmer for two hours, adding milk gradually during cooking, and season to taste.

2 Marcella Hazan’s version
Serves 4 to 6
1 tbsp vegetable oil
4 tbsp butter, divided
1/2 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup chopped celery
2/3 cup chopped carrot
¾ – lb ground beef chuck
Salt
Fresh ground black pepper
1 cup whole milk
Whole nutmeg
Cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups canned Italian plum tomatoes, torn into pieces, with juice
1 1/4- 1 ½ lbs pasta (preferably spaghetti), cooked and drained
Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese at the table
Put oil, three tablespoons of butter and the chopped onion in a heavy 3.3-litre (6-pint) pot and turn heat to medium. Cook and stir onion until it has become translucent, then add chopped celery and carrot. Cook for about two minutes, stirring vegetables to coat well.
Add the ground beef, a large pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper. Crumble meat with a fork, stir well and cook until beef has lost its raw, red colour.
Add milk and let simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely. Add a tiny grating, about an eighth of a teaspoon, of fresh nutmeg and stir.
Add wine and let it simmer until it has evaporated. Add tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients well. When tomatoes begin to bubble, turn heat down so that sauce cooks at the laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through the surface. Cook, uncovered, for three hours or more, stirring from time to time. While sauce is cooking, you are likely to find that it will begin to dry out and the fat will separate from the meat. To keep it from sticking, add half a cup of water as necessary. At the end of cooking, however, the water should be completely evaporated and the fat should separate from the sauce. Taste and correct for salt.
Add remaining tablespoon of butter to the hot pasta and toss with the sauce. Serve with freshly grated parmesan on the side.
From Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan

3 Elizabeth David’s version
Serves 6
225g lean minced beef
115g chicken livers
85g uncooked ham (both fat and lean)
1 carrot
1 onion
1 small piece of celery
3 tsp concentrated tomato puree
1 glass white wine
2 wine glasses stock or water
Butter
Salt and pepper
Nutmeg
Cut the bacon or ham into very small pieces and brown them gently in a small saucepan in about 15g of butter. Add the onion, the carrot and the celery, all finely chopped. When they have browned, put in the raw minced beef, and then turn it over and over so that it all browns evenly. Add the chopped chicken livers, and after two or three minutes the tomato puree, and then the white wine. Season with salt (taking into account the relative saltiness of the ham or bacon), pepper, and a scraping of nutmeg, and add the meat stock or water.
Cover the pan and simmer the sauce very gently for 30-40 minutes. Some cooks in Bologna add a cupful of cream or milk to the sauce, which makes it smoother. Another traditional variation is the addition of the ovarine or unlaid eggs which are found inside the hen, especially in the spring when the hens are laying. They are added at the same time as the chicken livers and form small golden globules when the sauce is finished. When the ragu is to be served with spaghetti or tagliatelle, mix it with the hot pasta in a heated dish so that the pasta is thoroughly impregnated with the sauce, and add a generous piece of butter before serving. Hand the grated cheese round separately.
From Italian Food by Elizabeth David

4 Heston Blumenthal’s Bolognese Sauce
Serves 4
50ml groundnut (peanut) oil
50g unsalted butter
100g onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1 star anise
150g carrot, finely chopped
4 sticks celery, peeled (with a peeler) and finely chopped
300g best-quality minced beef, not too lean (a mix of beef, veal and/or pork could also be used)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
150ml whole milk
Nutmeg (whole, for grating)
150ml dry white wine
375g tinned tomatoes, with juice
500g dried tagliatelle
Preheat the oven to its lowest setting (110C/ 225F). Put the oil and butter in a large casserole with a lid and add the onion, garlic and star anise.
Cook over a low heat for 30 minutes. Add the chopped carrots and continue cooking for another 20 minutes, then add the celery and cook for a further couple of minutes. Tip in the mince and press down on it gently, so it is integrated into the vegetables, and cook.
Generously season the meat mixture and add the milk. Grate over some nutmeg and cook gently for at least 30 minutes, until the milk has just about disappeared.
Add the white wine and tomatoes, stir through, then place in the oven, with the lid of the casserole slightly ajar. Cook for at least six hours. It probably won’t be necessary, but if the meat starts to look dry, add a drop of water.
After cooking, some fat will have split and risen to the surface, but don’t worry about that. When the sauce has finished cooking, it should be rich and moist.
Check for seasoning -be generous with the freshly ground black pepper. Serve with the pasta, cooked according to packet instructions, and some freshly grated parmigiano.

Fresh Ginger and Milk Chocolate Biscotti –

230 grams/8 ounces cold unsalted butter

35grams/ 1 ounce peeled and sliced fresh ginger root

100 grams/1/2 cup sugar

100 grams/ ½ cup light brown sugar

100 grams/1/2 cup dark brown sugar

4 large cold eggs

510 grams/18 ounces plain flour

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 teaspoons baking powder

120 grams/4 ¼ ounces Plain flour

230 grams/8 ounces milk chocolate pieces

How to Make

Combine butter, ginger and sugars in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until the mixture is fully blended and looks like wet sand. There should be no visible chunks of ginger left. Add the eggs one at a time, pulsing to blend in each egg before adding the next. Whisk together the flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder until well blended. Add all of the flour mixture to the food processor and pulse until the dough comes together.

Sprinkle the counter with the remaining 120g of flour and turn the dough out onto the flour. Sprinkle 1/3 of the chocolate onto the dough and use a bench scraper to fold the dough around the chocolate. Add the next third and fold it into the dough. Add the final third and fold it until the dough is smooth and the chocolate is incorporated. Divide the dough in half. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least four hours.

Preheat the oven to 350°F/ 325°F convection. Line two half sheet trays with parchment or foil.

Divide the first piece of dough in half and gently roll it out into a log approximately 10”x2” and place it on one of the prepared sheet trays. Do the same with the remaining half of the dough and place it on the other side of the sheet tray, leaving equal amounts of space between the two logs and from each side of the sheet tray. Do the same thing with the second piece of dough. Bake the logs for 23-28 minutes until the log are golden brown and cooked through. Slice each log on an angle into 1-2cm thick pieces. Set the end pieces aside for snacks. Lay the slices out on the sheet trays and return them to the oven. Bake for another 10-15 minutes until the slices are golden brown and dry to the touch. Let the cookies cool on the sheet trays before serving.

For some time MenuMania.co.nz has topped the list of Nielsen//NetRatings as NZ’s busiest & most popular dining & eating out website. The results recently published by leading international Internet analyst “Experian Hitwise” (www.hitwise.com/nz/) show that the popularity of MenuMania.co.nz with the dining public of New Zealand has put it in first position, as the busiest of all NZ hospitality industry websites.

Experian Hitwise – Category Spotlight

Food and Beverage – Restaurants and Catering New Zealand

This category focuses on restaurants, eating places, restaurant guides, and catering services. All of the data below is based on All sites > Weekly rankings for the week ending 21/11/2009 > Ranks by ‘Visits’.

Rank   Website

1. MenuMania

2. Pizza Hut New Zealand

3. Domino’s Pizza

4. KFC New Zealand

5. Hell Pizza

6. DineOut

7. Menus .co .nz

8. Eatout .co .nz

9. McDonald’s New Zealand

10. Subway – International Locations

MenuMania.co.nz is NZ’s leading online restaurant guide, reservation and review web site.  It offers diners the opportunity to find details about restaurants and cafes in their community and wherever they travel. Diners can see menus, check prices and special offers, read and write reviews, make bookings, and send restaurant info to  friends.  Plus with a new feature in 2009 on MenuMania’s home page, visitors can now also find wedding venues, conference or meeting spaces and out caterers.

Following in the footsteps of social networking sites, diners can read or write dining reviews which inspire and create consumer confidence to perhaps try somewhere different.  Simply put, its word of mouth – amplified, in the last month alone MenuMania has helped 115,000 different diners choose where to eat, while diners explored just under 450,000 web pages on MenuMania.

MenuMania.co.nz enables the owners of restaurants, vineyards, pubs, cafes & takeaway places from Logan Brown in Wellington to Cafe Cezanne in Ponsonby to publish their menus, dining promotions, photos, ambience and location information on the website as well as on the recently released MenuMania iPhone application.

MenuMania.co.nz was first launched in 2006 by Cristian Rosescu, Justin McCormack and Karen Gibson, in 2009 chef restaurateur Mark Gregory joined as a new partner.

Cristian who heads up the in-house technology and web development team for MenuMania, says after three years of site development that “It’s incredibly exciting to see so many people enjoying and using MenuMania, and most fulfilling of all they keep coming back over and over, the site is great and we love that people use it.”

The “Hitwise” results are particularly important when the hospitality sector is facing one of it’s toughest years ever.  Restaurant owners can now promote their menus and special dining offers or take round the clock reservations. The dining public of New Zealand are now using the Internet in greater and greater numbers when making their meal buying decisions.  This is great news for New Zealand hospitality and tourism.

MenuMania’s industry support and charitable initiatives in 2009 saw the launch of free and unlimited online reservations for diners, community support for “Wellington on a Plate”, Sunday Star-Times “Restaurant Month” and the restaurant industry’s charity DineAid, which is this year supporting City Missions with fund-raising throughout November & December.

Partner and Meilleur Ouvrier Chef Mark Gregory said: ‘MenuMania is a quiet success story of New Zealand innovation, I am exceptionally proud to be part of MenuMania, the team work incredibly hard and the fact that so many diners choose to use MenuMania just motivates us to make it even better.”

Notes: About MenuMania.co.nz

1. November 2009 – MenuMania is listed as New Zealand’s busiest web site in the Hitwise Food & Beverage Category. MenuMania is already listed as New Zealand’s busiest dining web site by Nielsen//NetRatings

2. MenuMania has a search database of over 10,000 restaurants, cafes and takeaways in NZ

3. MenuMania is recognized by both industry associations: (a) The Restaurant Association of NZ (b) The Hospitality Association of NZ and hosts their member restaurants, cafes, pubs and hotels

4. In 2009 MenuMania re-designed the Homepage for the City Guides, launched its iPhone application and mobile friendly website, Free and unlimited online reservations

5. MenuMania supports the restaurant charity DineAid by building and hosting all of its online restaurant sign up and search facilities: www.dineaid.org.nz

RUNNER-UP: Best Smart Dining Metropolitan
Clooney
When Clooney opened, the in-crowd made it their first choice for dining and drinking, attracted by the New York-dramatic décor with its edgy fringe curtains hanging from the raw concrete ceiling to subdivide the vast space.

2009 WINNER: Best Smart Dining Regional
Bouterey’s at 251
Far from the bright lights, in the rural township of Richmond on the outskirts of Nelson, Bouterey’s shows a passion and sophistication that is not often reached.

RUNNER-UP: Best Smart Dining Regional
Pacifica
This turquoise and driftwood decorated bungalow across from the sea belies the sophistication within of Jeremy Rameka’s seriously crafted food.

2009 Winner: Best Casual Dining Metropolitan
Soul Bar & Bistro
One of our out-of-town judges remarked that Soul was one place he would really want to return to, again and again.

RUNNER-UP: Best Casual Dining Metropolitan
Saggio Di Vino
This is New Zealand’s only vinothèque, where for more than 18 years Lisa Scholz and Yommi Pawelke have provided a haven for a glass or two of good wine, accompanying it with well-crafted food.

2009 WINNER: Best Casual Dining Regional
Hopgood’s Restaurant & Bar
Classically trained chef Kevin Hopgood moved from his native England to New Zealand for the lifestyle

RUNNER-UP: Best Casual Dining Regional
Wendy Campbell’s French Bistro
Last year Wendy Campbell’s French Bistro took out the award in this section and it is to Wendy and husband Jim’s credit that, a year on, their standards are as high as ever.

2009 WINNER: Best Neighbourhood Restaurant
Molten
Molten seems a home away from home for Mt Eden locals.

2009 WINNER: Best Winery Restaurant First Equal
Pegasus Bay
Pegasus Bay has taken our top winery award for the second year running, albeit this year tied with Terrôir.
Terrôir at Craggy Range
The set of buildings at Craggy Range is no doubt the area’s most dramatic

At this time of year use frozen raspberries for making this cake, they are full of flavour and cost a tenth the price of fresh.

Recipe
75g unsalted butter
80g castor sugar
Few drops vanilla
80g ground almonds
40g plain flour
2 whole eggs

Raspberry syrup
2 cups frozen raspberries
¼ cup water
¼ cup sugar
Serve with whipped cream or crème fraiche

Preparation
Heat oven to 200C. Spray your chosen single portion cake tins with a baking spray.

Beat butter and sugar together until light and creamy, add the next 4 ingredients and mix well together until smooth. Spoon mix into the 4 cake tins, spread a few frozen raspberries on top and bake for approx 20 minutes until well coloured and golden.

Remove from oven and allow to cool.

For the syrup, dissolve sugar in boiling water then cool slightly before adding the remaining raspberries.

To serve turn cakes out onto serving plates, spoon a healthy mound of raspberries on top and a little whipped cream or crème fraiche.

Each year as the Central Otago winter began to set in and our tomato and cheese sandwiches began to freeze rather than sog their way to school.   Headmaster would advise the parents, through the generously smelling purple inked newsletter, that the Pie Warmer would be turned on again for lunches.

Excitement would inevitably ensure. This was our mothers chance to shine.  Released from the shackles of the Belgium sandwich and free to express themselves through the medium of tin-foil wrapped packages no taller than 15cm.

The kitchens of Dunstan Road specialised in cheese rolls and spaghetti toasted sandwiches.  The galleys of Royal Terrace turned their attention to mince and onion pies, while the adventurous families of Russell Street prepared sausage rolls and pasties for their kinder. 

Nobody ever made quiche.

A good Pie Monitor would be expert in both timing and placement

The Headmaster knew the wheels that turned the pie warming machine could not be oiled by searing heat and a half-filled tea cup of water alone.  An operation of this size needed an oracle to ensure success; the operation needed a Pie Monitor.

At the Terrace School no station held greater power, sway or carriage than Pie Monitor.

Each student during their Form One year – Form Two were exempt as preparations for High School were too serious to be interrupted - would take turns at being Pie Monitor. 

At 10am sharp the assigned would excuse themselves from class and sprint to the hall kitchenette to fulfill their duty.  First the pie warmer would be turned on (to heat up as quickly as possible), the water replaced in the tea cup, the Pie Tray grabbed from beneath the counter and each classroom quickly visited to collect the lunches.

The Pie Monitor would run a tight ship to ensure every lunch was cooked to perfection. A good Pie Monitor would be expert in both timing and placement. Pies would have to be slotted into the hottest part of the warmer, while sandwiches could be laid, or stacked when volume necessitated, on the higher and cooler shelves.

Teachers used the service too, and for the greater good, prime spots would have to be reserved for these mighty beings. 

Being Pie Monitor was a delicate and high stakes occupation, not for the weak, vain or unfocused. 

For time was the Pie Monitor’s master. 

The 12.05 lunch bell would delay its chime for no mortal.  There would be nowhere to hide once the first child elbowed his way past his classmate to be first to collect his hard earned feast. If a pie was slightly cold in the middle, or a sandwich slightly soggy on the edges, word quickly spread. 

Whispers would be heard in the sandpits of the primer school. Comments would be made on the benches by the wheelchair ramp at the library. Accusations would be flung from the four square grids and Jungle Jims of the netball courts and playgrounds. 

“The Pie Monitor is no good.”

But if the Pie Monitor could overcome his obstacles.  If he could stack every oversized American hotdog, if she could rotate the sandwiches so each got a fair blast on the bottom shelf.  If she could present the pies piping hot, the sausage rolls evenly cooked, the baked bean toasties crispy and warm, then the rewards would be unparalleled. 

For there was no greater compliment in the complex and intricate social maelstrom of the late Nineteen-Eighties Terrace School, than to have an excited youngster yell “Goodie” when you affirm that indeed it is your turn to be Pie Monitor today.

By Sterling Pace
Convenience Food Critic