The miracle of grandparents: WBC restaurant review

These school holidays, my wonderful parents were wondering if the girls would, perhaps, like to fly down and stay with them for a week?  No one in our household needed to be asked twice – the girls were very excited about being Unaccompanied Minors, and we were quite keen to explore what a week without children could be like.  In a week bookended by southerly storms (and delayed flights) at one end and earthquakes at the other, the answer for us was *busy* (and we missed our girls, but they had a ball with their Granny and Papa)!

However, we were determined to get to the newest restaurant in town – WBC.  WBC is in the building of the former Wholesale Boot Company, and the food is, I’m happy to advise, melt-in-the-mouth delicious.

We arrived at the rather nondescript doorway on a cool winter evening, to see candles lighting the stairs.  On arrival upstairs, we were warmly greeted and taken to a table.  As with most restaurants in Wellington, they don’t take dinner bookings – on our wintry Wednesday evening, we arrived in time to get the last table at 7pm.  The room is long, with lovely large windows along one side and tables arranged the length of the room.  There is a bar that seats six (enough space to dine at the bar), with views into the kitchen where all the action is taking place.

The menu has a range of offerings and there are also lots of daily specials listed on brown butcher's paper as you come up the stairs.  There are starters and small dishes, mains and larger plates to share, along with veges and salads.  This creates options for creating a meal of the plates that you want and not being constrained by any expectation that you’ll follow a straight line though the menu.

The wine list covers the bases, with generally one option for each variety offered, including a mix of New Zealand and international wines.  All wines are available by the glass, giving the option of wine matching to each dish, if you wish.  There is a wide selection of spirits visible behind the bar, and I suspect that if it wasn’t a mid-week evening, we would have explored some cocktails to get us started.

The MOTH started his meal with a selection of oysters, which he was very happy with.  I opted for a small plate special of barbequed blue cod wings, with roasted red pepper and capers – these were delicious.  They had just the right amount of smoky flavour, balanced by the sweetness of the peppers and the salty tang of the capers.  The small plate provided enough for me to be happy enough to share one wing with the MOTH.

For our main, we took the chef’s recommendation of a special plate to share – groper steak.  Without a doubt, the best groper I have ever had – perfectly seared on the bone, lightly flavoured and melt-in-the-mouth delicious.  The flavour of the groper was the main event, enhanced but not overwhelmed by its light and buttery juices.  The groper came with two sides.  The first was a green salad with seaweed – simple, but surprisingly tasty, with the slightly salty seaweed and a good balance for the fish.  The second side was fresh peas, with tender green broad beans and garlic – perfectly complementing the fish and the salad.  We had also ordered hand cut chips – which rounded out the main course perfectly.

After a small pause to chat, we turned our attention to the dessert menu.  Predictably, I opted for the crème brulée, with poached rhubarb.  The crème brulée was perfect, and its little side dish of perfectly pink rhubarb was described by the MOTH as “like eating an orchid” – fragrant, lightly spiced and cooked to perfection.  In a departure from normal procedure (the MOTH is not a regular dessert eater), the MOTH chose banana doughnuts… and I have to say (as I don’t care for doughnuts), that these were a revelation – light and fluffy, with a delicious chocolate sauce.  I know what the girls would have had for dessert, if they’d been with us.

 
Overall, a lovely evening – attentive service, an interesting menu, wonderful food and delightful company.    Thanks WBC and the grandparents.

A cheeky little number

This blog comes to you courtesy of the tectonic plates that pass beneath Cook Strait, between the North and South Islands of New Zealand.  They’ve been releasing a bit of friction via earthquakes, or “shakes”, as we refer to them, in an attempt to minimise their potential for ripping apart lives and buildings.  The 6.5 magnitude shake yesterday means that we can’t return to work until buildings have been checked and cleared.  Happily, the damage appears to be largely cosmetic, so we have not needed to spend the day cleaning up, but can approach the “to do” list…

A couple of weeks’ ago, I went to the friendly neighbourhood butcher, intending to buy some oxtail.  We were heading to Tora on the Wairarapa Coast with a couple of other families, and Friday night dinner was our responsibility.  But, there was only one oxtail available – not nearly enough for the hungry crew – so I found myself at home with beef cheeks.

Now if you find yourself in possession of beef cheeks, you’ll see immediately that they are layered with the toughest, most fibrous, white connective tissues you have ever seen.  Ignore these.  Really.  Just pretend you never saw them.  But remember that you’ll be cooking them for around 5 hours, so plan ahead!

Beef cheeks braised in red wine

Makes enough to feed 6-8

2kg beef cheeks, chopped in large chunks – depending on how they arrive, this may be in half or in quarters, but no smaller than the palm of your hand

Marinade

6-8 cloves garlic
2 tbsp juniper berries
Sea salt
Pepper
Fresh bay leaves (4-5)
Fresh rosemary, leaves stripped from the stalks
Olive oil
Red wine
Rind of 2 oranges, peeled with no white pith

In a mortar and pestle, pound together the garlic, juniper berries, salt and pepper.  Add the bay leaves and rosemary and give them a few thumps to bruise them and release their aroma.  Add about ½ cup of red wine, the juice of one of the oranges and a few good glugs of olive oil (¼  cup?).  Add the beef cheeks and leave to marinade for a day or two in the fridge.

For cooking

Olive oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
2 large carrots, finely chopped
A bottle of red wine (you may not need all of it!)
1 litre beef stock
Juice of 1-2 oranges
Redcurrent/quince jelly
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 150 C.

Drain the beef (keeping the marinade, herbs and peel).  Brown in batches in oil and transfer to a large casserole dish.  Deglaze the pan with about ½ a bottle of red wine, scraping up any browned pieces of beef and bubble vigorously for 5 minutes.  Pour over the beef.

In a clean pan, add more olive oil and soften the onion.  Add the carrots and celery and gently cook until softened, then add about 2 C of beef stock, the orange juice, the reserved marinade and 2 tbsp of fruit jelly.  Pour over the beef.  Pop into the oven and cook for 3 hours (this is not the total cooking time, but you can safely ignore them for 3 hours).

At this stage, you can take them out and freeze them, or leave them in the fridge if you are preparing them a few days in advance.  If you do this, let them come up to room temperature, then cook in the oven for 30 mins, until they are nicely warmed.

Check the beef cheeks, give them a good stir and add more wine and stock, in roughly equal quantities, so that the juices just cover the beef.  The beef will still be quite tough at this stage.  Cook for another hour, then check again, taste the juices and adjust for seasonings.  Add more stock and/or wine if necessary.  After another hour check again – when ready, the beef will be meltingly tender – it will sit happily while vegetables are prepared.

I have to confess that I completely forgot to photograph the finished product, these photos are of my mother's version of beef cheeks provided midway through the series of shakes that we've been having - slightly different recipe, but just as melt-in-the-mouth good!

 

Tax avoidance

So this is what tax avoidance looks like in our house…

Just so that the Inland Revenue Department doesn’t have cause for concern, this is only avoidance of the task of actually doing the tax return, not avoiding the tax in a criminal kind of a way!

Actually, this post could also be titled “Antiquing” because that’s what happened on Friday – Mrs Urban Gardener and I took to the road and headed to some of those small towns with junk shops that have a whole lot of junk and a small supply of treasure.  A previous trip ended up with a coach horn being one of my finds… seen here with a couple of other acquisitions. 

The coach horn is perfect for calling the children home when they are rampaging through the neighbourhood (they will probably grow to hate this).

But, I digress.  On Friday, I found the perfect gem iron.

For those of you who haven’t met a gem iron, the perfect gem iron is a heavy cast iron mould for making ginger gems in.  Ginger gems seem to be a particularly New Zealand treat… so I lined up a selection of recipes and made several batches (while avoiding doing the filing that needs to be completed before I can get started on the aforementioned tax).  Consumer opinion agreed that Ellen’s Gems won – Ellen was the female half of the married couple who worked on my parents’ farm when I was growing up, so here is her recipe.

Ellen’s Ginger Gems

Makes about 12 (the number of gems in a gem iron)

1 C flour

1 tsp ginger
½ tsp mixed spice
20g butter
½ C golden syrup
¼ C sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp baking soda
½ C milk
Crystallised ginger, finely sliced (optional)

Heat the oven to 200 C and put the gem iron in to heat up (this is essential).

Sift together the flour, ginger and mixed spice.  Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.  Melt together the butter and golden syrup and add the sugar.

Pour the syrup mix into the dry ingredients, give a stir, add the lightly beaten egg, give another stir, and add the milk.  Mix to combine (it may be a little lumpy).

Grease the hot gem iron with butter (I use a pastry brush for this), and fill the gem irons to around 2/3 full (the mix will start to caramelise around the edges).  You can gently place some finely sliced crystallised ginger on top for extra ginger-ness.  Then into the oven for 10 minutes.  Turn out and eat while still warm.  Then do your tax.