Hard News: Where do you get yours? (Food Edition)
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Have I got a deal for you…just what you need to get about on
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There's a reason you and everyone else in the inner western burbs hits the Westmere Butchery. And it's not that it's trendy. It's really really good. And if you talk to the butchers in there, they know how to cook meat as well. Wholeheartedly recommend their black pudding. And their dried chorizo. and ... and ... and...
</fanboy rave>
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Yay for good food outlets in the neighbourhood. Ponsonby And Mt Eden Nosh is also very good, Il Forno for glorious baked goodies and Little Boy sausages.
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Hebe,
The "now I'll make you envious thread"?
I'll plug for Banfields of Beckenham in Colombo St at the Beckenham shops because it has: hunky organic rump steak for 20 bucks a kilo; $1 venison patties; good sausages (not yer Auckland fancy but good organic beef and others). And Mark the butcher for has a band called the Sexy Animals, sometimes impersonates Elvis, and has posters of Rob Muldoon on the walls.
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Wellingtonians:
Where to buy fresh produce in the northern suburbs, now that Molesworth Fruit Supply is a tile shop and the nice little fruit shop in Crofton Downs mall is being shut down to extend the supermarket?
There's Moore Wilson's in Porirua, but it's a bit of aways.
Thanks.
Gordon -
It seems food will be well covered here, so I thought some beer options for Auckland might be useful, as good craft beer is not available everywhere.
Vic Park and Forrest Hill New Worlds, especially the former. Countdown are usually very limited.
Village Winery, Mt Eden - their selection of craft NZ and imported beer is excellent and steadily expanding. Good Belgian selection, incl some Trappist beer.
Liqourland Newmarket & Parnell - both have a surprisingly good selection, incl imported craft beer from the US.
A pro-tip: the above retailers sell a lot of imports - look on the bottle for a label detailing the importer. If it has been imported by Hashigo Zake (Wellington), then the beer will have been kept refrigerated and should be fresh and in good condition. If the importer is The Beer Store, the beer may be older and stored warm, thus potential for oxidation and loss of flavour. I don't mean to call them out, this is just my experience.
Galbraith's in Mt Eden and Hallertau in Riverhead have an off licence to fill flagons to take away.
Lastly, very recently opened is Hopscotch Beer Co in Eden Tce, who have a dozen different craft beers on tap to fill your flagons from. $10/L for NZ, $15/L for imports. Yum, and amazing value.
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I read this:
an entire aisle of slow-moving Chinese products that nobody buys.
and I thought, "Keep that store open! Cos when we get back (and Auckland is our destination of choice) then we're going to need Chinese products!" But then I read an article in yesterday's Herald about Aucklanders feeling a bit uncomfortable about immigrant businesses with signs in their own languages and no English translation (Dominion Road was named, I think), and that's fine with me so long as some of those signs are in Chinese.
Fanciest shopping we've got around my way is a rather mediocre branch of Carrefour. It's alright and does a reasonable selection of imported goods (250g blocks of Mainland cheese for about 30 yuan/NZ$ 6 - no, I don't buy that often), and has even started stocking NZ wine now that the tarriff is zero - it's still a lot more expensive than the Aussie, French, Italian, American, South African and South American wines, though. But it's very reliable for half litre cans of Greene King IPA, Abbott Ale, and maybe one or two other brews from the some English brewer at 10 to 14 yuan each ($2 - $3), which is pretty good pricing for imported brews, really.
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mercifully unsliced multigrain loaves
A friend of mine calls this glued bread .
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Oooh yeah. Food shopping is the my favourite thing in the world.
Like everyone in Wellington I spend too much money at Moore Wilsons. But a lot of stuff there is quite comparable in price to New World and the selection is just so much better that I can stomach some of the more ridiculous prices (like their cheese...why so pricey Mr Cheese? WHY?!).
My new snob joint is On Trays. They sell the really expensive nonsense. Several varieties of Jamon Iberico (from about $180 to $500 a kilo), cave aged swiss cheese, a large variety of salt (because we can all taste the difference between sicilian sea salt and kosher salt eh?) ludicrously expensive dried pasta. I think they import a lot of stuff direct. Specifially South African things and Kosher things. Kosher stuff and the best pig products in the world.
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Oh and Lardo. On Trays just got in some lardo. Cured fat, really intense.
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Is this the start of the Food Blog
that got named months ago?
Prole Feed or summat wasn't it? -
Urban Harvest is a Wellington-based on-line retailer of good quality local and slightly-less-local produce, meat, bakery items and pantry stuff - for Hutties like me it's a whole lot more convenient than trekking into town to Moore Wilsons. It might not have the range of MW, but it has products from lots of well-known local growers and producers. In my experience the quality is great, the prices are reasonable and the customer service pretty damn fabulous. You need to pay a delivery fee, but it's well worth it imho. Of course nothing beats strolling into MW Fresh and having your senses overwhelmed by the sheer gorgeous foodiness of it all - but life is busy and unpacking a set of chiller bags from Urban Harvest, in the comfort of your own kitchen, brings its own kind of joy...
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Avondale Market is awesome - fresh veg. that lasts way beyond any reasonable expectation. (If you buy from the right stalls, anyhow.) Cheap, and conveniently close to home.
Make sure you put a rack and panniers on that butcher's bike in case you find a sweet deal in the flea market, or take a fancy to a lemon tree.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Lastly, very recently opened is Hopscotch Beer Co in Eden Tce, who have a dozen different craft beers on tap to fill your flagons from. $10/L for NZ, $15/L for imports. Yum, and amazing value.
Went there for the first time recently. Won't be the last.
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Just want to have a quick rave about the Opawa-St Martins Farmer’s Market, Sundays 9am-12noon, get there early for the freshest yummiest produce, often picked that morning, and sold by the people who grew it. Save money on the fantastic fruit and veg, and then blow your savings on She chocolates, luscious pastries, freshly-squeezed juice, gourmet salads or pies. Also free range eggs, yoghurt, herbs and pesto, buckets that grow mushrooms, artisan breads, etc etc. There’s often live music too.
They’re not paying me to say this. :-) -
everyone has their own favourite supplier, but the indian spice shop in newlands is pretty unusual. they have cinnamon bark, which i've never seen before. and that's not your cinnamon quills, it's big, fck-off chunks of bark. it's more resinous than quills, and doesn't have the dried, powdery consistency other cinnamon imparts. then there is the variety of spices, flours etc. the indian place in petone has a wider range, but the guys down the road are more fun.
was in there one day and a girl started to ask the lady behind the counter where some sort of "X dahl" was. the lady looks and asks, "do you mean X dahl or Y dahl? Or Z dahl? never mind, hold on." next thing she's on the phone to the poor girls mum, and gets off the phone saying, "you definitely need X dahl".
community. you can't beat it.
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Che Tibby, in reply to
to be honest, the riverside markets in the hutt have better produce than MW. sometimes *much* better.
they also have someone selling hangi "pork buns".
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Hebe, in reply to
Toshi's biodynamic lettuces are worth mentioning too.
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Also the riverside market has sausages rolled up in a roti. Yum.
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Oh one of my favourite topics. Hurrah!
Butcher
I used Better Butchers in Mt Eden Rd, mainly because I've known Grant and Les for years, and they're good blokes. And they do nice meat. Not posh, but nice.Bread etc
I like Wild Wheat bread. Once again, mainly because I'm there a great deal. I don't go on Saturday mornings, though. It can get a bit twee what with all the palagi pushing and shoving.
Produce
I either go to the one down the end of Landscape Rd, or get my fruit from New World, Mt Roskill. Speaking of which......
Groceries
I love New World, Mt Roskill. It has a great assortment of everything you need, including my beloved Puhoi - I mean, c'mon, Carrot Cake yoghurt? It's insanely good - and Bliss yoghurts. Which are Bliss. All of them - Mocha, Pear and Ginger, Pineapple and Coconut. OMG I love yoghurt. Oh, and they also do a nice line in fancy cheeses. And bulk bin spices. And it's incredibly multiculturally diverse, and I love that.
I don't tend to go to markets for some reason - I mean to, but usually don't. The Mangere market is pretty good but.
Other shops I go to - well, there's Dulcie May's Kitchen. Natalie Oldfield and her sister and mum run it, and Dulcie May beams down from the wall. They do wonderful pide's for lunch, and their little cakes are to die for. We always have a good chat about this, that and the other. I've tried La Voie in Dominion Rd, and they have wonderful baked goods. Authentically french. Speaking of French, Eiffel en Eden down the Three Kings end of Mt Eden Rd is great for stuff imported from France. And they do great crusty filled rolls too. Great for a bite to eat if you're out and about.
The fruit and vege shop at Rocklands in Balmoral is pricey but their stuff is good - fresh, and always lovely.
And if you want a good deli, the Mt Eden one is pretty hard to beat.
How's that for Maungawhaucentric? -
Zany Zeus of the yummy organic milk and cheeses have just opened their first retail store in Moera, Lower Hutt. Along with the usual milk and various cheeses, they have expanded their range into include yoghurts, smoked cheeses and icecream.
I love their creamy feta, haloumi and sigh…… peanut butter and jelly ice cream.
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Hebe,
Speaking of yoghurts, Clearwater cream-top organic yoghurt from Peel Forest is the best, anywhere, ever, especially the 2-litre buckets. Looks like you can find it everywhere: www.clearwaters.co.nz/find-us.php
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Russell Brown, in reply to
There's a reason you and everyone else in the inner western burbs hits the Westmere Butchery. And it's not that it's trendy. It's really really good. And if you talk to the butchers in there, they know how to cook meat as well.
Word. I've had good advice more than once. I also find they're keen to know when something worked for me.
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thegirlstefan, in reply to
Like you Sam, I'm a long-time Sth Wgtn resident, but haven't felt the need to go to MW for ages. The Newtown shops are awesome- free-range chicken & goat from the Halal butchers, as wells as lashings of lamb,and the (original) Med Food Warehouse still has good supplies in its current incarnation (dairy and pig-based).
Fantastic fish shop, topped off with fresh coriander from Asiana Foods in Riddiford St makes the meal.
(and yeah- if you're in the Hutt, the riverside market is the best in the Wgtn region)
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I don't think a thread has made me quite so homesick in a while, and I don't even live in Auckland. Oh Moore Wilsons, how we miss it! But only 136 days left till we're back in its scented aisles. In the meantime we console ourselves with the cheapness and easy availability of good chorizo and ... no, that's about it. My only tip is that you can buy proper-sized bottles of Kikkoman (instead of the miserable 250ml ones that are all you'll find in a supermarket) at Loon Fung Supermarket near Leicester Square. It's not local, and it's not cheap, and I had to carry the 5L bottle (they were out of 1L on my first visit) in my backpack 3km home on foot from the railway station, including a section up one of the few truly steep hills roads in England, but some things are worth hard work.
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