Review: Crab Shack, Baby, Crab Shack

If you see a faded sign by the side of the road, that says 15 miles to the Crab Shack! Crab Shack yeah! ~ modified from the B52's

My review posting needs a bit of a review.  I haven't posted any reviews in ages.  Over a whole year, would you believe?

Think it might be a combo of things: being a poor student again and not going out much, it being really tricky taking photos in a dim restaurant so fusspot me not being happy with the photos, and my long suffering husband getting all embarrassed at me taking too many pictures of meals.  What you would call first world problems.

So despite having lived in the Capital City for a fair six months, this is my very first Wellington review.  Outrageous.

But what better place to break my review dry-spell, than with the recently opened, Simon Gault owned, eating establishment: The Crab Shack.

 

A blooming great meal: Fleur's Place, Moeraki

While in New Zealand I hope to do two things - visit Fleur's Place in Moeraki and eat Bluff Oysters. ~ Rick Stein

Once in a while you have a meal that's so good it makes your toes crinkle under the table.  That makes you salivate just thinking about it even weeks later.

On our fruitful trip to Moeraki a couple of weekends ago, we were lucky enough to have lunch at famous Fleur's Place.  I say lucky because you usually have to book in advance and we just rocked up and managed to nab ourselves a table with only an hour waiting time - just enough time to check out the Moeraki Boulders up the road.

{moeraki boulders: rocked my world}

Go Fish: Tuna Ceviche with Coconut Milk, Coriander and Pickled Red Onions

It's not everyday your dinner falls into your lap.

Just over a week, Ruth and I drove out to Murdering Beach, just north of Dunedin for a run.  It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, our only company on the beach were circling seagulls and lapping waves.  We had only run one length of the beach when out of the corner of my eye I saw splashing at the edge of the water.

Was it a shark??  Was it a sea monster???   Oh no, that splashing turned out to be a humongous silvery fish - very alive but very stuck on its side, at the edge of the lapping waves.  Holy mackerel!  We literally caught the fish with our bare hands and took it home for tea - no floundering around! (Full credit to Ruth who actually did all the grunt work - Go Hunter Gatherer Woman!)

Fishing had never been so easy.

Ch ch ch ch ch changes, Chinese New Year and Cereal prawns

Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine. ~ Robert C. Gallagher

Happy belated Chinese New Year!  Kung Hei Fat Choi! Welcome to the year of the Rabbit.

I don't know what my horoscope is supposed to be for this year but it's definitely a year of Change with a capital C.

I've tried on many different hats in my time: pharmacy, research science, and most recently, lawyer.  But deep down, all along I've wanted to be a doctor.  I just missed out when I applied straight out of high school waaaaay back in '02 and that blow made me bury those dreams for a long time.

Now, I've been given another chance.  At the ripe old age of 26, I am uprooting my life, moving away from my loved ones, my friends, even my fiance to go to med school in a completely different city on a completely different island: Dunedin.

It has been an agonising decision...can I do it? Move away from everything I know and everyone I love to live in a place I've never even visited.  I'm excited and exhilarated but at the same time terrified and sad.  The hardest thing is knowing I'm leaving my Mum all on her own and be living away from C just when we are about to get married.

But at the end of the day the question was - is it worth it?

And it is.

Nothing worth having is ever easy and it's facing your fears and challenging yourself by doing things out of your comfort zone that shapes you as a person.

So this Chinese New Year, I am saying au revoir to the life I know to follow my dreams and to celebrate I tried a brand new super yummy Malaysian dish: Cereal Prawns.

First bbq of summer at Piha

 

After what seemed like an endless winter of torrential rain and frosty nights, summer has finally peeked its head over the weekend with two days of glorious sunshine.  

And what do kiwis do when it's summer?  We BARBEQUE!

Goodbye rain and hail and thunderstorms.  Hello chillaxing in the sun, sizzling barbeques and ice cold Coronas on the deck

And with that first hint of summer, we were off to the Piha bach for our first summer barbie: Garlic Butter Scallops and Char-grilled Vegetables with Chilli and Garlic Balsamic Vinaigrette.