New Zealand IX: Napier

Jan 11, 2011

Monday morning Laura and I caught the Interisland ferry back up to the north island. As soon as we reached land, we set off for Napier, New Zealand's art deco city on the beach. Art deco is an eclectic artistic and design style that uses linear symmetry (like the Chrysler Building, for example). Thus, Napier looked very different from New Zealand's other cities. I felt like I had time-warped into the 70's, but it was a travel back in time that I enjoyed. We strolled along the boardwalk, passing through public gardens and statues. My favorite was the Millennium Statue, which was a massive silver ball positioned in the center of a large blue arc. It reminded me of something straight out of my favorite television series, Lost: like a big magnetic force field that was going to send me to another place and time. It's not that far-fetch actually; I was on an island after all. My other favorite sighting was the Opossum World. Only in New Zealand. We take our children to Disneyworld, and they take theirs to Opossum World. I cringe to think what one would find inside.

The art-deco street of Napier

Millennium Statue

We decided that tonight would be the perfect night to treat ourselves to a nice dinner. After over a week of rice and beans, our desensitized taste buds were ready to experience some real New Zealand cuisine. The problem was finding a place to eat; nearly every restaurant was closed! It was bizarre to me that in summer when tourism is at its peak that nearly every restaurant was closed at 6:30 p.m. Fortunately, the one restaurant that was open also had the most alluring menu. Most of the restaurants we saw had the same menu more or less: fish and chips, nachos, burgers and lasagna. Pacifico, on the other hand, had a unique menu that reminded me of something you would see on Top Chef.

Laura and I entered Pacifico at 7:00. The place was hopping (probably because it was the only restaurant open). We were told it would be a half hour wait, so we put our name on the list and left quickly to pick up some groceries. We returned at 7:30 on the dot. We were told, "It will just be a little while longer. If you'd like to have a seat at the bar we'll let you know when your table is ready." So we sat at the bar and ordered a glass of wine to sip while we waited. We sipped and waited, and sipped and waited. We chatted with the bartender who was a lovely German girl working in New Zealand, just like I had done in Australia. We spoke with the owner who turned out to be from California, as well as with a local woman who was originally from Chicago but had been living in Napier for the past 7 years because she started her own winery. We sipped and waited some more.

Finally, we got seated at 8:45- more than an hour later! Needless to say our stomachs were aching for some good cooking, but we quickly realized that being seated do not equate to being fed. The service was incredibly S-L-O-W. It had been at the bar too. While we were sitting, sipping and waiting I had asked to look at a menu. The manager said "sure" and then proceeded to go do other things before returning minutes later and handing us the menus that were literally on the other side of the bar. It was painful. Pacifico was a small place and by the time we sat most of the other patrons were finished, so we couldn't understand why a server had yet to approach us. I was beginning to sense some age discrimination since we clearly were of the young backpacking sort, not the old, wealthy and pretentious sort.  At last our waiter came over with bread and butter in hand. When he put them on the table I shot Laura a look of disbelief. We burst out laughing. The "bread" was the size of a turd. One bite and it was gone. Really? After all that waiting the very least they could do was at least give us 2 turd bread balls, if not an entire basket full. Then we came to find out that the awesome dinner menu we had read was actually only starter size portions, rather than entree size. The idea is that you order lots of them as you would tapas so that you can sample many different culinary delights. Laura and I were prepared to splurge, but on a meal that was going to leave us full and satisfied not on a bite size appetizer. By now it was well past 9:00 p.m., so we weren't even that hungry anymore. We each eventually ordered one item. Laura ordered the sweet corn tortellini with tomatoes. I ordered the ostrich carpacio with Parmesan polenta. Yup, you read that right- I ate an ostrich and I liked it! Thank goodness the food was incredibly delicious, otherwise I may have gotten up and left. And it was ridiculously yummy tasting. I would be willing to go through that torturous long wait again in order to have another bowl of ostrich (slightly kidding). After our "main meal" we proceeded to wait for what felt like another eternity until our waiter came over and took our dessert order. We just shook our heads laughing in disbelief, joking about how it was now 10:00 p.m. and past our bedtime. Had it not been for the fact that we were dying to have the raspberry souffle for dessert, we would have called it a night. Our waiter finally acknowledged our extreme patience and brought us each a complimentary glass of wine along with our dessert (which was scrumptious, btw). The perfect ending to an unusual night out.