Tag: Personal

Definitely. Will expand more later – for now, I’ve been there 3-4 times so far, and everything I’ve ordered – and the people I’ve gone with have ordered – has been great 🙂

Up there with St. Tropez (which I’ve yet to do during my lazy non-posting days, hence nothing said about it so far,.Mamma Rosa is located in Melanesia Road, in Kohimarama. Relatively small, with inside and outside dining, and the service is above average too.

Well worth a look.

Adding to my posts earlier re: the poor level of education and effort present with regard to wait staff in Auckland (and NZ as a whole), there are some bright patches to be seen. Amongst these is Vivace, in High Street.

The first thing I did when we walked in last week was to order Caprioskas. I was somewhat impressed when the barman not only made the drinks without the use of reference material or a “huh – what’s that?”, but made the refreshments to a suitably high standard.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest… The food was reasonably good – decent risotto and pasta respectively, and I’d probably eat there again. Ultimately nothing that made me sit up and take notice too much, but I didn’t automatically add it to my mental list of places not to eat again (currently headed by The Observatory).

The floor however, is a different matter. I’ve seen various comments around the ‘net that the floor is slippery (which it is) and that people fall over every so often (which they do). Whilst entertaining, it would be a bit disconcerting if it happened to a friend.

Further to this, the outside area has planks on the floor, with reasonable gaps between the planks. Not good for those who wear shoes with anything approaching stiletto heels, as discovered by my company the night we went.

I really must return with a torch and rope one day to find her.

Ingredients

• Vodka (4 doubles)
• Limes (2 cut into eighths)
• Ice (cubes)
• a little sugar (raw)

Directions:

1. Crush sugar into the lime wedges with a spoon.
2. Place the lime wedges in the bottom of an 8 oz. glass.
3. Cover with crushed ice, fill glass with vodka, and serve.

Easy.

If a restaurant is going to be put towards of the top of the Sky Tower, it should at least be a reasonable restaurant. A simple idea I thought, but apparently not. We had talked about going to the above for friends’ father’s birthday but ended up going elsewhere (a good thing for all concerned). This time around myself and another decided to take in the views and what should well be a great buffet experience.

The evening started off well enough – $10 in a pokie yielded $100, apparently thanks to my lucky charm. Things went downhill from there though.A request for a Caprioska at the first bar resulted in blank looks and a shrug of the shoulders. I decided to ask at a couple of other bars in Sky City – same blank look, same unwillingness to ask us to wait while they went and found out what the hell we were on about. This is a bar that is touted as a tourist attraction to fair Auckland, as well.

I’ve said it before: customer service in NZ is poor. When the barman finally got around to making it, I counted at least 8 pours of vodka though, which helped ease the frustration somewhat…

We then went up to the Sky Bar, to find the same thing (ok – maybe by now we were just playing with them) from the American tending the bar there. Surely the meal experience will make up for this.

Nope.

We arrive, and the Maitre ‘D leads us to a table immediately in front of the cash register, while there’s a number of others further around empty. Argh. Surely the food will make up for this.

Nope.

The chef must have felt deficient in many areas in life, as the food by and large was overdressed, overcomplicated, and very much had the appearance of someone trying too hard. With food, often less is more, and the appearance and taste was a mishmash.

Overall verdict: Valentines at three times the price (with a slightly better view).