two meals with Dion and Minna

One of the happiest things to learn about Dion and Minna over the last few years is that they, too, enjoy good food and good wine. Look, I know I'm called a food snob - to my face, even - and sometimes it's a fair accusation. So let me revel in it yet again.

On our first night in New Zealand, I saw a beautiful book at Dion and Minna's and was compelled to flip through it. Ah, the lust in my heart. A cookbook and a coffee table book: I knew that by the end of the trip, I'd buy my own copy. You can imagine my delight to learn that it was from the restaurant we'd dine at the next night, Saffron.

I love when fine dining is out of the way. I love that a small isolated town - albeit one that seems to bank on tourism - has such great dining. Arrowtown, not far from Queenstown and all the wineries and recreation of Central Otago, has the look of a restored old-time village. Saffron, meanwhile, just sits there, not too assuming.
Ah, but treats are in store inside.

I didn't get a copy of the menu (so I'm trying to pull some descriptions from the Web site), nor did I get good photos of all the courses. No shots of the raw Bluff oysters - a seasonal delicacy - for example. Meaty oysters and briny. We got the last order, and that only added to the enjoyment, of course. I also don't have a shot of my whitebait done two ways. The cookbook shows a plate of three preparations, and three are available, but not all on the same plate. I think I did well to forego the fritter and just have them simply fried and lightly coated in flour and fried. So simple, and yet the appetizer stuck with me throughout the remaining two weeks in the country and beyond. And did Conrad have an appetizer? I think so, but I cannot recall. No shots of our shared side dish of roasted vegetables that sent me on a two-week obsession over the delight of kumara.

An amuse-bouche: bloody Mary, served as a liquid-filled soft globe on a spoon.


Conrad's main course of Akaroa salmon, poached with creamed spinach, potato, wasabi, sweet ginger dumpling, sake beurre blanc.

My own main course of calves liver, crumbed, sauteed golden, with red cabbage, chicken & chestnut boudin. Liver is such a rare thing to see on menus, and I was drawn to it immediately. Worth it.

Dion and Minna knew the local wines better and steered us to a Valli Pinot Noir. In the end, we downed two bottles (and we wonder why we gained weight on the trip? HA!) Dinner done, we moved on to dessert.

Conrad wasn't wowed by dessert, a hazelnut praline souffle with hokey-pokey ice cream. I kind of have to agree, to a point. The souffle had a good nut fragrance but was mostly a bit blandly eggy in flavour. What redeemed it was plunking the ice cream into the still hot souffle. At that point I thought it rather tasty.

Oh, and indeed I did buy the book at the end of the trip. Food porn, utterly, and I love it.

Minna and I had corresponded at some length, trying to figure out fine dining in Auckland. In the end, though, we went for familiar rather than new: The French Cafe. Dion and Minna love the place a great deal, and when we'd dined there with them in 2007, we had enjoyed it mightily as well. Dion, in fact, recalled that I had raved about the quail. Good memory on that man, and quick check of the blog entry now shows that indeed I had. Which didn't stop me from ordering the recent preparation of that bird as my appetizer. Again, no menu to work from, and worse, few good photos. Bear with me - I'll get this right one day. Working from the Web site, then:

My appetizer of roasted quail breast with sweet spices, almond cream, quail b’stilla, poached apricot, pistachio oil.

Conrad's appetizer of swordfish carpaccio with pink grapefruit vinaigrette (which Conrad asked to have left off), shaved fennel, candied lemon, freshly picked crab, watercress.

Minna, Dion, and I all had the pink roasted lamb with soft white almond polenta, sweet tomato, buffalo ricotta, stuffed zucchini flower, lavender foam. The polenta was brilliant, and the zucchini flower filled with buffalo ricotta was a wonder.

Conrad stuck to fish (and I can't recall what type - salmon?) with seared scallops, stir-fried asparagus, shitake mushrooms, pea shoots, ginger sauce, fennel cream.

For dessert Conrad enjoyed the assiette of French chocolate, featuring warm chocolate tart, milk chocolate ice cream, cocoa brulee, chocolate macaroon, chocolate sauce.

The rest of us each ordered the apple creme brulee, a magnificent concoction of caramelised apple, vanilla apple jus, green apple sorbet, butterscotch, pain d’epices.
This was the best dessert I had on the trip, I think.

Our wine was a lovely Pinot Noir from the Canterbury area of the South Island, the 2005 Bell Hill Old Weka Pass Road. We ended up with a generous heaping of contentment, and were once again glad to have visited. It's very easy to see why this is a favoured restaurant, and I was sorely tempted to buy its cookbook as well.

Two very very fine meals in New Zealand, and yet, there was one restaurant we liked even better (and one other restaurant that was very definitely comparable to these two). Our hard lives...