The rain could not keep us from Carlucci Land for long.

Despite the biting wind and our hangering bellies (we went straight after work and stupidly neglected to bring snacks) we battled through 18 holes of mini golf on a crazy course covered in metal sculptures we were encouraged to interact with.

Sure it’s not a very manicured or maintained place: the greens have been reused from old tennis courts and are covered in bits of trees; there’s an angry rooster which was, thankfully, safely tucked away in the shed while we played; and the course is full of potentially unintentional sinkholes.

We had a great time though. It took six of us around two and a half hours so we didn’t finish till just before closing time. Probably because we spent so long on the shit talking aspect of the game.

There were mandatory scorecard nicknames (Sexy Jesus TYVM) and 66.6% of us got into the hole in one club!

Extra notes: Lots of interesting putting stances from Laura, brandishing of putters like croquet mallots and hockey sticks from Pia (and the penis statue she found in the bush), hip thrusting from me, backfiring of the shit talk for Brend, winning in a totally understated way by Fi, and Tim not losing despite every indication that he was going to.

Mt Vic is sunny, close to town, full of cute houses, and full of cool people. Kate and I took a walk around the burbs for a bit of sun and exercise and cat spotting.









Big downside of living in a city built on hills = no garages = cars parked in front of all the pretty houses.

Wellington has some pretty great street art around at the moment. It helps that the more scribbly stuff is either colourful and confined to designated graffiti areas, or social commentary.

The polls might show that as a country we’re right leaning National lovers, but the Capital’s graffiti tells a story about leftist liberal greenies.

Thankfully I didn’t have to do any of the cooking this weekend. We drove out to the food mecca that is Petone in the morning and visited a bunch of new (to me) foodie places.
The Dutch Shop where we picked up chocolates and licorice bullets.
On Trays where the small isles are full of delicious looking jars, drinks, cheeses, olives, and a whole lot of South African dried meat. Brend and I chose a bag of delicious Biltong, but it didn’t survive the day.
An Indian store full of spices and dried pulses and ready to eat curries.
And finally the supermarket where we picked up salmon and ribs and capsicum to smoke.

Back in town the boys got the smoker going while I headed to Martha’s pantry for some girly high tea with Jo, twitter friend Selina (Jo’s IRL friend), and Selina’s daughter Shannon. On entering Martha’s Pantry I started kicking myself for not having been earlier; it’s a wonderfully girly heaven. Full to the brim with cute cup and saucer sets, frilly aprons, delicious looking sweets, and a million kinds of tea. The furniture is painted white and paired with kitschy table cloths, ours had cross stitched flowers.

I topped off all the high tea goodness with a walk home in the unusually warm Wellington weather; (almost) a bottle of bubbles; and smoked ribs, salmon, and salad.

Unfortunately overly sweet bubbles give me hangovers so I spent Sunday eating pie sandwiches, microwaved sausage rolls, custard squares as big as my head, and drinking orange cordial. I watched 5 movies as well.

]]> http://cupcakesandmace.com/2011/08/15/but-apparently-it-does-now/feed/ 1 http://cupcakesandmace.com/2011/08/15/its-not-supposed-to-snow-in-wellington/ http://cupcakesandmace.com/2011/08/15/its-not-supposed-to-snow-in-wellington/#comments Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:10:38 +0000 Kim http://cupcakesandmace.com/?p=4026
But there’s no such thing as climate change right?

You have until the 1st of December to vote and winner will be announced on the 3rd of December at Mighty Mighty.

Here’s who I love this year. I’ve left out the sections I didn’t vote in due to lack of personal experience with the places.

Best Cafe

All of the cafes in this section are amazing. I’ve been to them all at least once, but the stand out, the one I make a special trip to the beach for, on a weekday so I can get a seat, is Maranui. Their milkshakes are delicious and their vege big breakfasts are like no other. Plus Freya makes an amazing coffee.

Best BYO

Again, I’ve been to all of these restaurants, and they’re all great. But Namastey is the one I keep telling everyone about. I’ve never actually dined in before because the takeaway specials are damn good. But the food is SO good, particularly my favourite saag paneer.

Best Late Night Experience

Havana Bar on Wigan St is cozy, has an outdoor area that’s warm enough for non smokers to hang out with their smoker friends, and has live jazz on Wednesday nights. Their bar tenders are friendly as well. It’s off the beaten path so it almost feels like a secret just for Wellingtonians, well away from Coutenay Place.

Best Service

I love love love the little Japanese Caravan on Ghuznee Street. Me and Brend are regulars there but even when we weren’t the service was friendly. It helps that their food is delicious and cheap.

Best Regular Entertainment

Easy choice. Derby. I love derby.
Come to the Auckland vs Wellington bout on the 11th of December yeah?

Best Event

I’m sure that if I had been to Webstock I would have voted for it. I think it deserves to win. But as I haven’t been myself I decided to vote for Wellington on a Plate.

It’s food. It’s available at a special rate and often with a special menu. What more is there to say? Wellington has some amazing restaurants.

Best Outdoors Experience

One of the best things about this small city of ours is that you can be standing in the middle of the business district and get to either a bush walk or the water in less than 10 minutes. I love the waterfront.

Best Suburban Destination

Monterey is my pick for the ‘burbs. I’ve only been once, but the mac ‘n’ cheese was delicious. They have paper covering the tables so you can draw while you wait for your food, and they’re active on twitter. I hear they do a pretty mean brunch as well.

Best Art Experience

Monsters was a friends project for her event planning course. But even if it wasn’t I would have voted for it. I loved all of the art included. Particularly the zombie take on Edmonds’ Sure to Rise baking powder.

Best Shopping Experience

This one was pretty hard to pick. Two food choices! Oh no! While I absolutely adore Cultured in Petone (what’s not to love? It’s a shop dedicated to cheese), and the owner Wendy is super nice, I went for Moore Wilson’s Fresh.

My decision was based on the fact the I can walk to Moore Wilson’s, and I can buy cupcakes, bread, and meat.

Most Needed

I’d be pretty happy with anything on this list. But surprise, surprise food wins again. After a mini discussion on whether we needed good mac ‘n’ cheese in the city or donuts we decided on donuts.

I have people that make great mac ‘n’ cheese, but I have no one to make me donuts. :[

Most Missed

Cuba Street Carnival please come back! It was a sad day when we found out that there was not enough funding for the Cuba Street Carnival to go ahead next year. It seems like most of Wellington heads to other areas of the country to celebrate giftmas and New Years and we’re in need of something to look forward to right in the heart of the city when we get back. Cuba Street Carnival has it all.

Best Contribution to the Internet by a Wellingtonian

As stated previously I’ve never been to Webstock. But it hasn’t stopped me from appreciating and being affected by the work Natasha Lampard and Mike Brown do. I think their work has gone some way to make Wellingtonians the crazy internet obsessives they are. And I love it.

Best Thing About Wellington

Maranui and the waterfront already have a vote each from me. So this one goes to Celia. Ousting Kerry Prendergast as Mayor with special votes gave everyone a few very nervous days of waiting. But when she pulled through I did a little dance. Good times. Please don’t pull a Barack on us Celia.

*Not actually my iPhone yet as I haven’t paid my friend for it. She lent it to me to try out for a couple of weeks and now she’s never getting it back. It’s been like giftmas ever since she handed it over.

I’m such a dweeb.

It’s 6 o’clock in the morning and B (manfriend/flatmate) is heating up breakfast when he barges into my room frantically asking if I’m still awake and telling me to turn on the light. His distress is freaking me out but the only thing that comes to mind is that a huge rat decided to come out of its home in the roof and lunged at him in the kitchen.

Not so.

He’s standing in the kitchen when there’s a knocking at the window, he looks up to find a woman standing at the window, in the rain and wind, not really doing anything. He’s trying to ask her wtf she’s doing and decides to open the door a fraction. She asks the time and says she’s staying at the hotel a few doors down. Not knowing what’s going on B says he’s shutting the door now and that’s when he runs to my room.

Understandably he’s little freaked out that she’s going to attack him when he leaves for work.

Not so.

Instead he finds her standing in the middle of the road like a zombie.

“What is it about this house that attracts all the freaks?”

I love rum. It’s my favourite alcoholic beverage. So when Jo put out the feelers for someone to accompany her to a Monday afternoon rum cocktail championship at Bettys my hand went up immediately.

10 of the top bartenders from around New Zealand competed for a chance to be flown to Cuba and represent NZ in the Havana Club final next year. I expected to see lots of interesting ingredients and fancy tricks and I wasn’t disappointed.

Arriving at 1 when the event was supposed to start meant we were unfashionably on time, but it also meant we got in on the free drinks (!) from the first round. Ginger beer, lime, and dark rum to start with. Yum.

Nearly all of the contenders were as good at entertaining as they were at bartending. With 10 minutes to create 3 drinks they still found plenty of time to make crude jokes and banter with the presenter. With cocktail names like butter my nuts, and one of the contestants claims that his pina colada will make 18 year olds putty in his hands, it didn’t take much more encouragement for Jo, Laura, and I to giggle loudly things like “give it a wet shake” and “it’s all about shaking the flesh”. More free cocktails probably helped. Jo’s twitter hashtag for the event was proving more and more accurate – #cockchamp.

Christchurch competitor Charles injected a kiwi flavour into his drinks and his humour. His first cocktail being a brojito which contained watercress and L&P and came with a side of fry bread in the shape of a pig face.

My award for most entertaining went to the final competitor of the day who was running very late due to being held up in customs. He arrived in a red bow tie and butchers apron claiming he was late because he was 3 cigars and a bottle of rum over his limit and had to “dispose” of them before he could get on the plane. He ended up going 4 minutes over his time allowance and said he’d have to share his photos of Cuba with the winner because there was no chance he’d get to go again.

In the end it was the sole female entrant – Claire Harlick of Matterhorn – that won. Girls just do it better.

Most entertaining trick – Pouring flaming liquid between jugs
Coolest looking drink – Pina colada in an old fashioned milk bottle
Tastiest cocktail (from the few samples we got)- A chocolatey porter beer concoction from Johnny of Hawthorne Lounge
Most impressed by – How many ingredients these perfectionists make from scratch!