Escaped Pets.

Hey,

I woke up this morning with an almost violent craving for fish and chips, which I think is connected to the suddenly-sunny weather that has visibly turned Auckland on its head this morning (Wednesday 17 September, when I write this). We’ve had other sunny days in September, but today is the first one that I’ve felt like eating fish and chips: snapper with crunchy bits of bubbly beer batter snapped off with a quick meeting of your teeth, followed up by an oily chip that smooshes the soft potato against your tongue. That is one of the fundamental downsides of living central: a lack of access to this essentiality of New Zealand life, except for perhaps CATCH AND CRISPS in Wynyard Quarter, which is only open from 3pm (boo).

Auckland is always better in warmer weather (true of basically everywhere) and it’s making me feel better about other things, like how AI-crazy my day job is, the fact that I haven’t three-starred every Knockout Tour on Mario Kart World besides trying really really hard to, and my memory of walking past a Charlie Kirk vigil in Aotea Square on Sunday afternoon, although that last one is harder to reconcile with, even with this one-layer weather.

It’s easy to spiral into thinking everything is meaningless (especially when you’re consuming the level of Ethel Cain that I am alongside reading the news about genocide), which is why I am enjoying writing this weekly newsletter right now, even though the initial proposition of “weekly” got me a bit scaredy cat about having enough things to say. Making meaning is so delicious; it makes life worth living etc. etc! Here is one thing about living here that is giving me meaning this week: seeing a pair of rosellas (parrots) amidst the Phoenix palm trees in Myers Park from my living room window. They look like escaped pets and give me a little thrill every time.

Love,
Jean

Hi, if you’re reading this on Thursday afternoon and you’re at a loose end tonight, HEAD TO GOBLIN, where you can meet the winemakers behind Tāwhiti Wines in celebration of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. There’s tastings backgrounded by DJ AJ Honeysuckle. 

There’s a new dessert spot open till 12am (Friday + Saturday) in Newmarket called ATMOSPHERE, which does pretty much everything from acai bowls to Belgian waffles to hot donuts. I’ve long lamented the absence of late-night dessert places in Auckland – a friend and I used to be obsessed with House of Chocolate in Takapuna – and this one seems mostly catered to younger Asian students et al. Although, I guess most things in Newmarket are? There’s also a new noodles place on the rooftop of Westfield Newmarket called OODLES which is getting a lot of love online – the menu looks Uyghur-leaning with things like lamb shank pilaf, skewers and pickly things, but they also just have biang biang noodles and beef noodle soup.

I went through Ponsonby Central for the first time in a while and saw that there were a couple smaller little stalls in amongst the mix of everything: a Pie Rollas (you’ll probably have better like there at nabbing something vs the Karangahape Rd store) and THE TREATORY, a cookies place that is doing crazy advertising on TikTok. Are cookies in, or out? The cookies place on Karangahape Rd (The Dough Corner) is now closed and was short-lived, having been on the upper-end near the old Tesla showroom for less than a year. My favourite place to eat at Ponsonby Central is WATDA, the Korean spot next to Lulu’s, which is a teeny-tiny restaurant – expect to sit outside – with a similarly teeny-tiny menu. Each main comes with side dishes and it overall feels like a lot of care is being taken, which is obviously a really nice feeling to have when you’re dining out. I had the BBQ Galbi, although they seem to be known for the pork katsu that comes out in a mountain of breaded-and-fried goodness.

One of our favourite cafes, HOLIDAY is having a soft opening at a NEW SITE today in town — they’re at 1 High St which looks like it might be in the foyer of the Barkers store. In other soft opening news TACOTEAROA is doing Mexican street food opposite Dominos in the Wilson Carpark on Elliot St today from 11am-4pm.

Top three places on my current wishlist:

1.
ONSLOW: I want to go back to Onslow (I haven’t been for over two years) and try the Jerusalem Artichoke ice cream with riwaka truffle, butterscotch and hazelnut. God knows I love a weirdo ice cream. The chocolate souffle with hazelnut stracciatella ice cream also sounds delish.

2.
EL CAPOS TACOS: I la la love tacos and have been to pretty much every taco spot in Auckland, and these have been on my radar for awhile: a pop-up only in Roskill, their NEXT ONE IS ON GIFFORD AVE this Friday 19th, 3pm to 7pm (or sold out).

3.
YAWARA RAMEN BAR: Simon sent me THIS RAMEN RANKING of the best bowls in Auckland, in promotion of the screening of Tampopo in an Auckland film club, and the only one I hadn’t heard of in the S tier was Yawara, which is in Orewa (not an area of Tāmaki I frequent, except for when I go to the beach, which is nice). One major gripe, Ippudo in A is crazy (it should be in C imo).