Posts by Robyn Gallagher
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Espressoholic 2000. The hot chocolate is good, but is the ONLY thing it does well. Bad, non-local coffee, and music blaring at a volume that totally thwarts conversation
Espressoholic use the Sara Lee Corporation's Piazza D'Oro brand coffee. It's adequate but pales in comparison to 90% of the beans used by Wellington cafes.
And I've always maintained that if Espressoholic don't change their decor and hang on another 5 years, they can become a retro '90s theme cafe.
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In Hamilton, from 1992 until 1997 when I left, I enjoyed numerous mochaccinos from the brilliant Metropolis cafe, and others. There was a well established cafe scene there.
The first Starbucks there didn't open until the early 2000s. There are currently only two (2) Starbucks in Hamilton.
In Wellington, my impression is that the four downtown Starbucks are frequented mainly by tourists.
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the cappacino could then have a *pile* of froth on it, like a little cinnamon-dusted pyramid
Yeah! I thought I was the only person who remembered when cappuccinos used to be made like this! There'd be some suburban cafe, usually with a name like Aromas, and they'd do those crazy cappuccinos.
The foam mountains and lattes in bowls are a couple of quirks that somehow became standard in cafes in New Zealand in the '90s. They're slowly being replaced by properly made coffees, no doubt fuelled by customers who demand them.
But I miss the foam mountains. Can someone open a retro Kiwiana '90s cafe that serves them?
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When Starbucks launched in Australia and New Zealand, glaringly absent from their basic coffee menu were the Australasian cafe staples: the long black and flat white.
Eventually they relented and added them. But why weren't they there from the start? Did they not research the market? Did they assume that antipodean cafe dwellers just needed to be introduced to the pleasures of a thin, frothy Starbucks latte?
No wonder they're having trouble down under.
¡Scorchio! A Fast Show reference from Ms Gallagher.
Yay! Someone noticed!
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And eat well.
Today I have been mostly eating chicken liver mousse on crackers.
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Speaking of ordinary internet use, have you ever found someone who has no google results? It amazes me that people can live rich, fullfilling lives but never do anything that gets mentioned online.
Also topical - parents who give their kids "unique" names - while there are going to be many Jacks and Bellas in the classrooms, they're the ones whose ubiquitousness will make them hard to google. It's their classmates Finnleagh and Jorjah who will be google-stalked with ease.
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The Jaquie Brown Diaries works -- it really works!
Yeah! I found myself laughing in the right places, and enjoying it when I wasn't laughing. (But I'm kind of media/telly, so is that why I'm laughing?)
Bizzy Trickle was surely the best portrayal of an American rapper in a comedy programme - most attempts are awful and never get the vocab, accent or rapping right. Word to your mum.
And how interesting that the SST's Sunday magazine ran an article highlighting the awful history of NZ television comedy (with only a paragraph at the end acknowledging the hits).
I know a few of the guys behind the JBD and they're funny and talented and I'm glad they've had a chance to make a good comedy series. More, please!
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My new-found mate laughed about that: "This place gets by on the myth that it is close to Uluru," he laughed, pointing out that the Big Red Rock was actually as far away from Alice as the top of Scotland from London
I had to check for myself on Google Maps and it's really true! Alice is far from Uluru, but I guess when you're dealing with that scale, it just seems close.
For comparison, the distance between Alice and Uluru is comparable to the distance between Auckland and Waiouru, Wellington and Napier, Christchurch and Motueka or Invercargill and Oamaru. (Disclaimer: I worked this out using a piece of cardboard, a pen and Google Maps) And that's as the crow flies - it's about 60km further by road.
By the way, check out how magnificent Uluru looks on Google Maps. No need to visit!
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Nouvelle Vague do a pretty cool lounge version of Guns of Brixton.
I have a weird feeling that Nouvelle Vague's version has influenced Calexico's. Hmm...
I rather liked it, especially how turns the Black Maria from a paddywagon into a dark reference to the Virgin.
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It was great to see Maori subtitles on Shortland Street last night, even though they flashed by very quickly--another demonstration of how much dialogue there is SS.
I know there's a word-per-minute rate for the production of captions and subtitles - people comprehend written language slower than spoken language - and I'm sure this rate would have been stuck to with the Shorty subtitles, with editing down if necessary. But I wonder if it seemed fast to non-Maori speakers because there wouldn't be that automatic recognition of words as units, instead having to read every word letter by letter.