Today, I have a series of best photos. I haven't updated in a while and I've been on a few escapades between now and my previous post.
I was in Wellington on the weekend, getting my hair blown off with the wind. We went to
Dockside and despite their blurb saying:
"The Dockside restaurant & bar is situated at the heart of Queens Wharf, and is one of Wellington’s most diverse venues with the ability to cater to every need."
they could NOT cater to every need. Before I set out into my rant, I'll post the best photo from this trip.
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| The night view from my window. |
Rant time!
Our first impression was not a good one, where upon arrival we were told - before even getting the chance to enquire about our reservation - that there were other people that needed seeing to, and that we would have to wait.
That was fine, but after waiting five long minutes for the man to come back, we were told to head upstairs where we waited to be seated for another five long minutes.
We were finally seated at our table and given our menus (entrees $25-$50 and mains $40) and promptly told that there was no steak.
The waitress poured each of us a small tumbler of water, and then told us they didn't have enough jugs to leave one on each table that night. She also advised the drinkers in the group that if they wanted beer, she would recommend they ordered bottle-beer so that she didn't have to go downstairs to get it off tap.
She went away for a while, then came back to take our entree and main orders. A few people ordered the whitebait fritter (YUM! Or so I would have thought...) and were given a choice of 'wet' or 'dry', which none of us had ever come across before, but basically means 'sloppy' or 'crispy', equivalent to a steak's 'rare' or 'medium'. Everyone who ordered the fritters ordered them 'dry'. I'd hate to see what the 'wet' fritters were like, because the ones we got were pretty soggy, the egg BARELY cooked.
Some of us also got seafood chowder. My dad is doing a New Zealand-wide survey of seafood chowder (in jest, really, but he seriously did a personal nation-wide survey to find New Zealand's best pea, pie and pud, which happens to be in
Palmerston in the South Island, in case you're in the area). I didn't have any, but after everyone had finished theirs, the residue on the bowl looked like nuclear waste. It was green and seriously almost glowed. It looked as if they'd used a chicken noodle sachet to flavour it. Dad said his seafood chowder contained the sum total of two small chunks of fish and quarter of a mussel. They are meant to be overflowing with seafood, but this was definitely not.
After this came a long half an hour wait, before the waitress came back to tell us that our mains would be another twenty minute wait away. Half an hour later, she came to tell us that our dinners were being cooked. Ten minutes after that, the mains finally came. The lamb was hard, dad said, and me and three of the others had ordered the beer battered fish and prawns (naughty, I know). The fish itself I thought was lovely, and the prawns were a little tough, but not too bad. The chips however were overdone, and simply encrusted in salt. I've never had chips so salty even from McDonald's.
The waitress came back to take our dessert orders. A while later, she walked towards us, and I sat there thinking, "shit, please don't come to me, because that can't be good." Murphy's law, she had come to tell me that they had run out of the dessert I'd ordered.
Firstly, the waitress didn't know that there was a difference between ice-cream and gelato. The menu clearly stated they had gelato, so that's what it should be.
Everyone who had deserts had either a roasted banana pudding with passionfruit junket, or berries with limoncello and mascarpone (except one who had plain vanilla ice-cream, even though they "don't usually do that"). The waitress obviously is thick and pronounced mascarpone "mascipoan".
Those who had the pudding said the pudding was nice, but the junket was way too watery, and the candyfloss (yes, they got blue candyfloss) was was horrid, and those that got the berries said there was next to no limoncello at all. When asked if we could have some limoncello to drink after our deserts, the waitress had no idea what we were talking about. Obviously she thought it was a cooking drink. We told her that after travelling to Italy, we had become accustomed to drinking it after a meal, so she said that she would see if there was any left from the cooking supply, and never returned.
Overall, a thoroughly unsatisfactory night from one of the "best restaurants in Wellington". The problem? They had taken on way more people than they could possibly handle. Ever heard of a simple 'no, I'm sorry but we're fully booked that night'?
Obviously not.
OK, rant over. I have figured out that my phone's camera is bloody awesome. Here is the best of those images from yesterday (I need three to show that it's not just a fluke that the camera is awesome):
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| My hand has a zip! |
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| This circuit board is only around 3 inches square |
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| This just looked so damn awesome. |
The next best photo is from my night photography escapade with Gabriel last night. We went to Highland Park first to take photos of the library, then Stockade Hill to take photos of the tree all lit up, and then to Picton Street to take photos of the lights and then found some skinned animals casually hanging up in the butchery. You know, like they haven't a care in the world.
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| Cliche, I know, and yes my lens is dirty....... |
