There’s something for all appetites at a French bistro in Newmarket

We came here because we're enjoying the vibe and Melburnian intent of this new Ponsonby development and have been slowly ticking off its eateries.

They're not necessarily the latest or the slickest, just good places with nourishing food, great coffee and a pleasant atmosphere to help you rest and regather that holiday spirit while on the highway to somewhere.

A Vietnamese restaurant in Newmarket lives up to expectations.

Steve Braunias' collection of travel essays on 'places no one went to' is pure gold.

If you really want to know about Epicurus, this isn't the book.

If you haven't done so already, I suggest this year you make peace with a more casual style of eating out.

Triumph of style, taste: An evening meal in central Auckland restores this reviewer’s faith in food.

Tasting 50-year-old rum is a privilege and a joyous event, finds Don Kavanagh.

Can lunch ever really compete with dinner as the ultimate dining occasion? Definitely. Especially when it involves taking a trip to the country through rolling hills to a beautifully restored villa with white wicker furniture set out on a shaded verandah.

The Big New Yorker Book Of Dogs is big all right: 21cm x 28cm and 395 pages, with a generous smattering of those gloriously sly and sardonic New Yorker cartoons. The content is generally serious in tone.

Peter, the 14-year-old narrator, plus elder brother Hans, the handsome horse-tickler, and sister Tilte, the obsessive reader of other people's diaries, realise their parents have vanished. Ostensibly, Mum and Dad are on holiday in the Canaries.

They make their own ice-cream at this Indian restaurant down on North Wharf. The trio of flavours was so wildly fantastic that each mouthful took me and my friend by surprise.

Serves 8-10: 125g (cup) butter, preferably unsalted, 170g (cup) caster sugar, 1 tsp vanilla essence, 2 eggs, 250g (2 cups) fine semolina (farina), 1 tsp baking powder, tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), 185g (cup) plain yoghurt

Serves 6: 35g (cup) rice flour, 750ml (3 cups) milk, Pinch of salt, 55g (cup) sugar, 80g (cup) round almonds, 1 Tbsp rosewater, Pistachios or almonds, to serve, Pomegranate seeds