As everyone knows, food is important to me, as it was to Rosie. And because of that I want to record that I have just experienced one of the worst meals I have ever had in a restaurant. The culprit was the chef at the restaurant of The Golden Gate Lodge in Cromwell. I had been recommended to this place and went there willingly. The meal I chose was braised pork belly on a bed of mashed kumara with an apple, celery and onion slaw. Kumara is a type of sweet potato that has been cultivated in New Zealand for hundreds of years, originally brought here by the Maori from somewhere in the Pacific.
The meal, when it was brought to the table, consisted of a slice of underseasoned pork belly, perched on a mountain of roughly cut red onion, a few slices of apple and chunks of celery, te whole thing sitting on a wodge of stodgy kumara, some of which was not mashed at all. None of the ingredients worked together and the effect was quite unpleasant.
Being a glutton for punishment and because I had ordered a bottle of excellent Pinot Noir from the Wooingtree Vineyard (the one successful part of the meal) I asked to try some New Zealand cheeses. A giant wooden slab bearing three types of cheese, plus some not very palatable chutneys was brought. There was a blue cheese, a New Zealand Brie and a smoked cheddar. All I can say, on the evidence of these three cheeses, is that New Zealand cheese makers (or at least the makers of these cheeses) should not give up their day jobs.
Oh well, you can't win all the time and there is lots of beautiful scenery as compensation.
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