KEY POINTS:
Herald on Sunday rating: * *
The pleasures of the freelancer's life are many, but one of the things I do miss about working in the city is the tradition known as going out to lunch.
When I was a wage slave, I used to do quite a bit of this. In fact, I sometimes did the going out bit with such enthusiasm that I ended up dispensing with the going back bit.
O'Connell St Bistro had a lunch special, which they recently reinstituted, that cost about as much as a couple of hours' parking. They reasoned - correctly in the case of me and the colleagues I dragged down there - that they might make their money on the bar side and I never ceased to be amazed at how a $20 lunch could turn into a $70 lunch with the simple addition of a couple of bottles of wine.
For people on salaries, this kind of undertaking is not as perilous as it is for the freelancer who can't very well invoice for the time. That's why I don't do it much any more. And that's why it's fun when I do.
I had been to Zest, the restaurant and bar in the City Life Hotel in the central city, but only for an after-work drink with someone who regarded my preferred watering hole as insufferably common (suffice it to say that I still have the same preferred watering hole).
But this time I decided to use it as the place to meet a couple of people that I used to work with.
Now the other thing about freelancers is that they are immune to the obscure machinations of what everyone else calls office politics. But that doesn't mean we are not mightily amused by them.
It's good to sit down and find out who has finally got the comeuppance they deserved, even if the list is short compared to the list of those who deserved comeuppance and got a promotion instead. Zest, about equidistant from all three suspects' offices, suggested itself.
Zest, which is not noticeably zesty, has an 'express lunch' menu that comprises selections from its à la carte offerings in a package that consists of bread, main, coffee and glass of wine for $19.50. It seems like good value but the experience of it is one that constantly reminds you how carefully it has been contrived to fit a budget.
One of our number ordered a pasta dish that was, she averred, 'a lot better than it looked, actually' - damning with faint praise if ever I heard it - and my other companion had fish and chips, which consisted of a couple of decent fillets, although one had a large bone in it.
The 'seared' steak sandwich was by far the worst: a poor cut of beef, badly sliced and cooked to the consistency of ugly grey leather.
A single bread roll, some fairly objectionable house wine, second-rate brewed coffee: you get what you pay for, I know, but creating a really alluring table d'hôte calls for a lot more imagination than is at work here.
The conversation, however, was excellent.
Zest
171 Queen St
Ph: 367 1234
Website: www.heritagehotels.co.nz/citylife-auckland
Wine list: No doubt. The house whites were bog-standard Corbans.
Vegetarians: The pasta.
Watch out for: The 'steak'.
Sound check: The place was empty.
Bottom line: Made for speed, definitely not comfort
- Detours, HoS
