We’ve only been when I have an Entertainment Book voucher to use up. Good thing because their prices are pretty high – $8.20 for a cheese/ham/tomato croissant!? I guess you shouldn’t expect normal bakery prices because they also trade as a cafe, but still, I think that’s pretty pricey.

I went in to the one on Thorndon Quay on Saturday to grab some lunch for the hubby and me. I didn’t think it would take 10-15 minutes to heat up a panini. It’s because they put it in the queue along with everyone else’s sit-in lunch orders. It’s pretty silly that they have two microwaves on the cashier side to heat up your pies (they don’t have readily hot pies either, boo), but they don’t have a panini press! So I stood there with my other goodies, including a hot pie, and waited and waited for my panini.

The panini (finally) was nice but nothing special. It was a bit of bacon, some mashed kumara and pesto. Not a lot for the $7.50 I paid for it. The hubby commented that his beef pie was “meh”, later clarifying that “it wasn’t good”. We also got a lemon danish and a custard square. The lemon danish was good but could’ve done with more topping. The custard square is better than most of the floury goop you normally get elsewhere, but not as good as the ones you can get from Aro Bakery.

I haven’t tried their sit-in menu so can’t comment on that. Maybe we’ll give it a go with the next Entertainment Book voucher… we’ll see.

Unfortunately, my only experience at Zico last week was nothing to rave about.

We were a large group of ten, out for a birthday dinner on St Patrick’s Day, and the waiters were new or just clueless, so perhaps those factors have to be taken into account for the less than satisfactory service.

First off, getting the waiters to take our orders was more trouble than it should have been. We told one of them we were ready to order and he disappeared without saying if he’d be back to take them. Luckily there was another that we caught the attention of, but her order-taking skills could have done with some polishing.

Ms Constantine inquired about the salmon carbonara to ensure she could get it without bacon. Her carbonara didn’t just come without bacon, it came without carbonara sauce and was delivered as a pomodoro pasta – if you work in an Italian restaurant you’d know straight away that there was something wrong with that. The waitress however didn’t seem to know the difference and was confident that the dish was correct.

The three boys ordered the “real deal” lasagne which is “served with green beans and potatoes” as the menu stated. This turned out to be a vegetarian dish made with green beans and potatoes. Far from the meaty tomato-based lasagne that you would expect as the “real deal”. Until we realised that there was no meat in the lasagne, there was much confusion over where the green beans and potatoes were because the menu implied they would be on the side and not in place of the meat.

As for my meal, I ordered the duo of lamb and steak, medium please. It arrived mostly rare and some bits were barely sealed… at that point I just couldn’t be bothered with making more fuss so just ate what I could. The bits that were cooked to my liking did taste good though.

And at least I had a good glass of red wine.

'Medium' does not mean one half done and the other half raw

Satay India, located on Allen Street in Wellington city, often does two for one deals during the week – as long as you purchase a naan bread with each curry, you get the cheaper curry free.

I have to say that they make the best butter chicken I’ve ever had. It’s creamy, tangy, and has a sweet caramel taste to it. And it’s not too sweet like most butter chickens can be. It’s just divine!

The naans are always fresh and delicious too. They make the stretchy bubbly type of naan unlike the floury bready stuff we got in the UK. In fact, our two experiences of UK Indian wasn’t that great. The butter chicken was a specialty at the restaurant we went to in Wales, but was not like any butter chicken we get here in New Zealand. It was certainly buttery, but not the right colour, texture or taste. It just wasn’t right. All I could think about was how much I missed the butter chicken at Satay India!

Aside from the butter chicken, their other curries are also very good – according to friends. I’ve had a few of the other curries but I like the butter chicken best. I’m not too sure about the vegie ones though – they always seem boring but maybe that’s because I like my meat!

If you are into your beers and curries, Satay India offers Kingfisher Strong in a 650ml bottle. For about $12 a bottle and with an alcohol content of not more than 8%, it’s not a bad deal at all.

They do takeaways which I’ve been told is great value for money too.

The only complaint I have is that you can’t take home any left-overs if you have the banquet. Something that isn’t obvious when ordering. Also, they forgot to give us our poppadoms that time too – boooo!

I missed seeing them back in 1996 but 13 years and a baby later I finally got to experience them live and they were awesome! It was great to hear songs from an array of albums, including some short covers of random songs. They are an entertaining bunch.

Best line of the night: “Get out of here Joseph. You and your biblical name. Tell Jesus I said Hi.” Billie Joe said that to a sweet kid from the audience that volunteered to be his ’sacrifice’ for one of the songs. I love Billie Joe’s sense of humour.

Unfortunately we didn’t have a decent camera with us so we only got some terrible blurry ones on our cellphones.

It was the first time I’d been to Auckland’s Vector arena. Pretty nice venue but what a rip! Parking was $20. Then they confiscated my water bottle and snacks (I still eat like a pregnant lady), and proceeded to charge me $4.70 for a replacement 300ml bottle of water. Not only that, they wouldn’t allow me to keep the plastic bottle and I had to have it in a paper cup – the most expensive cup of water ever! Also, it’s hard to ‘put your hands up in the air’ with a cup of water in one.

It was a good night out though. We left Abby with my parents for what turned out to be a good six hours. I missed out on my evening nap so was absolutely exhausted by her 2am feed. Lucky the hubby was there to tag team with.

Certainly a night to remember for me. Yay for Green Day.

We went to the Matterhorn a couple weeks ago with the hubby’s brother and his then-pregnant wife (who had her baby the day after me). The brother-in-law heard good things so we were keen to give it a go.

The meals were tasty, but boy they were the smallest dishes I’ve ever been served!

On top of that, the sister-in-law wanted to be cautious with her steak so asked for it to be well done. It took them three goes before they got it right. It came out medium first two times, and she had to wait an extra half hour or so after our meals were served before the poor lady could eat! How hard is it to cook a steak well-done!?

I got the ‘monk fish with spanner crab’. Ok, when you list something as spanner crab, I expect some pure spanner crab like a claw, or at least a hunk of meat. But no. Where was the crab? I could only assume it was mixed in among the processed sausagey thing that surrounded my two tiny pieces of monk fish. Disappointed with the description. I wish restaurants would describe their meals more accurately.

Matterhorn meal - feed a child for $36...

Definitely a place where you need an entrée, main and dessert, to feel satisfied – and poor. We opted for supermarket dessert on the way home instead.

We went on a Saturday at 12:15pm. Should have been a busy time, and it did look fairly populated. Unfortunately the same food kept cycling around and we only got one dish of steamed dumplings in the first 3/4 of the time we were there. Some new steamed dumplings finally arrived after about 45 minutes.

The place was a bit grimey. The bowls and cutlery were visibly unclean, and I had to wipe them with my napkin first.  The teapot didn’t look like it had ever been washed. They are quite slow at filling up your teapot too.

We also had to ask one of the waitress each time to show us what she had,  to which one of the explanations was “body parts”. Hmm, best not to ask which body parts… She showed everyone else without being asked though! What’s up with that?

The range of  food was limited and the same waitresses kept assuming we were full, exclaiming “Want more!?” each time she came around. Yes we want more. We just don’t want the body parts that you keep bringing around. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a well-rounded Asian that eats almost everything. I’ll eat the classics like tripe, chicken’s feet, tendons and so on, but calling them “body parts” and not even wanting to show us is a little off-putting lady.

If you have leftovers you want to take home, you have to bring them to the counter when you pay. I don’t know why they can’t just bring over a takeaway box to your table like normal places.

I won’t be going back. I can see why my cousins in the Hutt come to Wellington City to have yum char. We’ll stick to The Regal – our favourite place. It might cost a little more but it’s cleaner, yummier and friendlier.

Katherine Heigl plays an unlucky-in-love neurotic young professional who gets love tips from a manly man’s perspective in bagging her ‘perfect’ man.

It’s R16, so expect some crude adult humour and four letter words. Why the people in front of us wanted to bring their little kid along to this I’m not quite sure.

A cute, though predictable story line. I still enjoyed it – after all it’s a romantic chick flick.

By the way, I had a feeling that the guy who played Mike Chadway was from 300. Turns out I was right. He looks much better in The Ugly Truth sans the spray painted abs! (Update: Ok, so I thought those abs looked a bit too fake to be in 300, and Ms Constantine pointed out that the link I gave was to the spoof Meet the Spartans. Lol. King Leonidas has better abs in the real 300 movie.)

Scene from The Ugly Truth movie

I didn’t know much about the movie except for the trailers. Hubby explained in a nutshell that whilst awaiting the OK for Halo, Peter Jackson jumped at the opportunity to produce District 9 – a movie that has had rave reviews due to the talent of little known or unknown actors and a very good story line involving aliens stranded in South Africa. Sounded good.

And it was.

I’m not sure how much sway Peter Jackson had on the story, but there were scenes reminescent of his splatter movies like Brain Dead.

I found myself swapping sides a lot in the movie – I was for the humans, then the aliens, then the main character, then I wished he would stop being an ass, then the aliens again.

Scene from the movie District 9

The story is based on the issues of racial segregation and it was hard not to compare the situation with the Apartheid policy, being set in South Africa and all. It made me a bit ashamed that we as humans possess traits such as racism, prejudice and selfishness.

Good acting, story line, action and special effects, plus popcorn and ice cream make for a great movie experience :)

It’s a bit of fun, with some good laughs and lessons that Oprah Winfrey would be proud of.

Unfortunately, it’s also another movie that links popularity with being happy. To be a teen in America is something I’ll never really know about.

Scene from 17 Again

There was nothing about this café located in the Porirua MegaCentre that made me enjoy my first, and definitely my only, visit.

All the doors were left open and you could see the cold wintery breeze pushing dustballs across the icy floors. It was uncomfortable despite being a few feet from the fire place.

The food was just bad. It wasn’t even average.

The girls had pancakes with banana, bacon and a choice of maple syrup or “orange syrup”. I chose the orange syrup because it sounded interesting but what come on the plate looked and tasted like watery orange juice…

The pancakes weren’t even home made – WHAT!? Looked like they were layered with cheap bacon and banana and microwaved till the banana was a chewy grey. Tasteless. It didn’t help that we only got a wee amount of fresh cream and syrup. Ms Constantine asked for more maple syrup for the both of us and we both agreed the maple syrup was watered down and tasted a bit off.

The boys had a cooked breakfast – you know, the typical bacon, eggs, sausage, hashbrown, tomato and toast. How hard can that be? Just as hard as pancakes it turns out.

The “toast” was not toasted – WHAT!?  It was just a thick slice of plain cold bread. The poached eggs were overdone – eww! The half tomato was hard and uncooked. The bacon was again the cheap type, and looked like it was just heated rather than grilled. The “lemon hollandaise” as it says on the menu was nowhere to be seen.

The best thing apparently was the hashbrown, which Café Pica claimed was their own. Not even! It was one of those preshaped triangular things that you buy frozen in bulk. Thankfully it wasn’t home made as it might have tasted as bad as everything else.

If you can make a better breakfast at home on a Sunday morning, then something is  seriously wrong with the café. Pancakes and cooked breakfasts are not fancy pants food!

Not going back, ever.

(I just looked online and saw all the reviews for Café Pica on MenuMania were just as bad – so I added another one.)