The Dish: An Express French Lunch, A New Wellington Wine Bar & More Delicious Food News

This week we’re eating pickles with everything, drinking beige drinks and sampling the best of Milford.

Enjoy a quick lunch at Origine with its new express menu

Commercial Bay’s French-style restaurant Origine has launched a new express lunch menu that includes any tap beer, freshly baked bread and butter and a choice of three dishes: either Steak Hache, which is Origine’s minced eye fillet steak with green peppercorn sauce, which dining out editor Jesse Mulligan described in his review of Origine as being given “a good crust in a hot pan and turned on to a plate just as the interior hits medium. The meat is tender and beautiful and, of course, simple”. The second option is mussels in a scampi and saffron broth, and the third: ravioles du Dauphine, with asparagus, fromage fraise, sauteed greens and a chervil beurre blanc. We don’t know about you, but this sounds like the ideal lunch catch-up, especially in Origine’s elegant dining room with its louvres that open to the outside and views of the harbour just across the road. All for $28. Available Monday to Friday until the end of November. Bookings are recommended and can be made here.

New opening: Rosella wine bar in Wellington

There’s a new neighbourhood restaurant and wine bar in Wellington’s Mount Victoria from Johnon MacDonald and Kat Strand, the team behind Asian fusion restaurant Koji. Rosella’s menu traverses the flavours of the Mediterranean, Middle East and North Africa, with the “big and bold” dishes designed to share. You’ll find plates like nduja and taleggio empanadas with agave and fennel; steamed butterfish with Morrocan eggplant, fermented tomato and annatto oil, and snapper escabeche with cumin and saffron rouille. Johnon says at Rosella they are “keeping the relaxed but attentive service of Koji, the good-vibes-focused atmosphere, the incredible food offering, and adding tap cocktails.” Rosella’s wine list canvasses European wines as well as New Zealand wines and spirits. The interior has been designed by Kat to feel laid-back and fresh with a tiled bar, textured walls, and wine bottles on display. The plates are all designed and handmade by local island bay potter Nicola Shuttle. Rosella is open Tuesday to Friday, from 5pm until late, and Saturday to Sunday from midday. 18 Majoribanks St, Mount Victoria, Wellington.

Book in for: Peter Gordon’s Delisio Degustation

It’s a degustation but not as you know it. Chef Peter Gordon promises to make potato chips the star of the show at his pop-up dinner across two nights this month — Delisio Degustation, which fuses Delisio’s new Restaurant Series chips with restaurant dishes you might find at Peter’s restaurant Homeland. The bespoke three-course menu (find the full run-down of what’s on offer here) will be served with a paired drink, like local craft beer, New Zealand wine or a non-alcoholic cocktail, and has been designed to complement the flavours of the chips, including Delisio Yakitori Chicken & Shallot to pair with salmon and trevally sashimi with yuzu ponzu, sea grapes, coconut and crispy chicken skin and Delisio Triple Cheese chips to pair with Peter’s bacon ice cream. The evening includes cooking demonstrations by Peter himself, plus the chance for guests to make their own canapés. The Delisio Degustation runs from 5.30pm until 8pm, October 18 and October 25 at Homeland. Tickets are $56, available here. 11 Westhaven Drive, Auckland CBD.

Try a new product: Green Meadows’ new pickle patties launch today

You might usually put the pickles on top of your pattie, but this new collaboration from Green Meadows Beef and McClure’s Pickles sees you put your pickles IN your pattie. Maybe you could even do both. The new Angus Beef + Pickle burgers from Taranaki’s Green Meadows Beef combine 100 per cent free-range Taranaki Angus beef with sweet and tangy McClure’s Bread & Butter pickles with a hint of garlic and dill.

Rebecca Caughey of Cook and Nelson, local distributors of McClure’s Pickles, says: “Pickles bring sweetness, crunch and acidity to a burger and help round out the flavour experience. Whether in the burger, on the side, or now — thanks to our friends at Green Meadows Beef — added to the burger patty itself, it’s a heavenly combination that can’t be beaten.”

Green Meadows’ Angus beef products are produced in the family’s own production facility in New Plymouth. Managing director Nick Carey recommends barbecuing these patties for maximum flavour. Available now at selected New World, Pak’n Save, Four Square, Fresh Choice, Supervalue and Farro Fresh, online at Greenmeadowsbeef.co.nz and at Green Meadows butchery, 58 Katere Road, Waiwhakaiho, New Plymouth. $13 for four burger patties.

Pals has a new flavour and it’s not as beige as it sounds

The Viva team recently received a delivery of Pals’ latest RTD flavour, teased to us as “The Beige One”. While the colour may be beige, the flavour is rather tropical, with pink guava, lime and vodka. The Pals team say this flavour went through a lot of taste-testing to strike just the right notes. “We put a huge amount of effort into perfecting the flavour and the process takes months of fine-tuning,” says co-founder and director Nick Marshall, who boasts that every flavour in the Pals range has picked up a gold award at the Hard Serltzers Masters, a global award with an international blind tasting panel. Like Pals’ other flavours, the new Vodka, Pink Guava, Lime & Soda contains only natural flavours, is 31 calories per 100ml, is vegan- and gluten-free and has no artificial colours, sweeteners, or preservatives. $31 for 10, available at all good liquor stores and supermarkets.

What The Viva Team Has Been Eating And Drinking This Week...

Vindaloo fries at KOL

For a quick Friday drink, I stopped in at KOL with a friend (I’ve been captured with fond memories of their mocktail range). I had the Alucha Fizz, a smooth and syrupy mix of Seedlip spiced (non-alcoholic) plum, strawberry and citrus. We also paired our drinks with a couple of bar snacks — we enjoyed a hearty bowl of vindaloo fries with mustard seed oil and a serving of a crunchy and punchy Amritsari prawn toast. 23 Ponsonby Rd, Ponsonby — Madeleine Crutchley, multimedia journalist

Pork flat noodles from Tokki

Milford might not be the first place you think of when you’re looking for great Auckland restaurants, but it’s now home to several standout offerings, including Korean restaurant Tokki, wine bar Cave a Vin, and new family-friendly eatery Milford Motel. I was at Tokki last weekend and had the flat noodles with chilli and doenjang pork, which is a beautiful plate of extra long noodles, which the team tell me are made off-site (their kitchen is too small to stretch the noodles to the necessary length) with a secret wheat flour recipe. The doenjang (soybean paste) and gochujang (red chilli paste) give the sauce a bright reddish hue and savoury spicy flavour, and the pork mince is crispy and caramelised in all the right places. 87 Kitchener Rd, Milford — Johanna Thornton, deputy editor

Pastries from Mor Bakery

On Saturday morning, I made an early trip to Mor Bakery, the Instagram-borne business now with a bricks-and-mortar in Remuera. The store, small and humming, has in its short time established a vernacular of precise pastry: croissants of various kinds looked ruled by the golden ratio. I tried a rosette, a swirled cinnamon-sugar bun filled with a tower of vanilla creme and blueberry jam, that was, in the highest compliment, not too sweet, and a choc hazelnut pain suisse, a sort of especially crispy oblong croissant. I’ll be returning to try everything else. 158 Remuera Rd, Remuera — Julia Gessler, digital editor