Jitzu review from a free trip to Dunedin

Wow what a weekend good to be reliving the memories of Dunedin! And it was free trip! One particular thing I love about Dunedin is going to BYOs. There is nothing like polishing off a bottle of $6.99 Shiraz over an Asian meal and using it to justify your lonely walk home in the morning. The venue tonight was the popular Jitzu BYO restaurant. I was looking forward to the new experience and seeing my friends.

When I first arrived I was dumbstruck. They had cut the legs off our table so that it was about 30cm off the ground and eliminated the chairs. I couldn’t see the reasoning behind it. It was like being a kid at Christmas not being allowed to sit at the table with the adults so you go sit on the floor and eat. Due to the number of people transferring from one side of the table to the other had to be done army style underneath the table with people reemerging on the other side like they had just escaped from being stuck in a Chilian mine. Standing up made you feel like you had a large amount of authority, kinda like a motorcyclist in a scooter gang.
So anyway onto the food side of things. I ordered a bento chicken box with a miso starter. This was my first time trying miso and honestly I am not a fan. It tasted like juice drained from a sardines can mixed what felt like whale blubber. But hey this is a Japanese experience and a fishy dish is vital for that. The Miso was not for me which is crazy because I go crazy over sardines on toast which used to rat out my previous fussy flatmates. The others had the complete opposite opinion and rated it.

The bento box however was a taste sensation and also an awesome idea. Each ingredient is separated into its own compartment so it’s up to you to mix and match. The main body of the box was the chicken nugget with mayonnaise and a restaurant special tomato sauce, the rest of the box consisted of rice some onion things, a random sushi roll and some other sauces. Sorry the details are quite hazy as my fine red was nearly finished. I tried every compartment individually in order to gauge how I was best going to mix everything into a mouthful that was worthy of a samurai honor. The flavors of each individual compartment were amazing; it was like a journey through Japanese food culture. On my first mixing attempt I failed dismally mainly because my chopstick dexterity was the equivalent of someone with Parkinson’s. I probably should have performed seppuku right then and there. I slowly got the hang of it and made some pretty worthy mixes but would have been better with proper cutlery. I thoroughly enjoyed the meal and the whole chopsticks debacle meant I actually took time to appreciate it rather than adding more food to my mouth in-between chewing.

Overall this is a great BYO to go to in Dunedin. You can’t get as rowdy as in chopsticks and there appears to be no basement where you can go exploring but the food is ten times nicer and comes in cool mix and match boxes. The sitting room out back has the potential for many fun challenges e.g how many people can fit under the table? because you can definitely get two layers of people lying under there. There is however no potential for a sneaky under the table gobby or handy.

Rating

Setting-4/5 could had some more Japanese stuff like samurai swords
Taste-4/6 the miso caused this to be lower others might have a different opinion
Presentation-4/5
Service-4.5/5
Total-16.5/21

To all those in Dunedin I love each and every one of you

Cheers
Larry

The Picnic challenge!

Hey guys sorry I have been really slack with the blog lately mainly because got some much shit to learn. Here is a new challenge which involves me and ash trying to eat a picnic bar in under a minute. take a look!


so yeah exactly a minute! first challenge I actually have beaten! gutted for ash but nice try tho!

The Saltine cracker challenge

This is a well known challenge across the world. It involves eating 6 5 by 5cm saltine crackers in under 1 minute. There is even an article on wikipedia for it.
It's not as easy as it sounds.


Sweet so yeah I failed but I reckon I might be able to do it one day if I practice a little bit.

Masterton surg trip

Masterton hospital surgery trip

7.50am start after end of run, a bus driver who enjoyed driving over the Rimutaka’s a way too much and an incredibly annoying 5th year whose voice is like one of those bugs off the mummy that get under your skin and go mental all added up to a hangover that could take down an elephant. I was relying on two things to get me through this day-free food and coffee.

We arrived at Masterton hospital to a provided morning tea which was cheese scones, juice and coffee. Not much variety here, a few savouries would have been a nice inclusion mainly because that’s all I felt like. Coffee was standard, after three I was getting over it slash starting to seizure. The juice was fantastic and helped clear away my toxin flooded blood. Hopefully lunch offers more.

Lunch

I was so hungry by lunch I had began to hallucinate. Needles became dried noodles, syringes were little sausages, and the training mannequin became a pig on the spit. I’m glad they didn’t put me on suturing first or else I would have eaten the pork belly. Lunch saved me, it was glorious. Chicken drumsticks, club sandwiches, assorted wraps, fresh fruit, slices and mini spring rolls and samosas with sweet chilli. I ate copious amounts at a speed that didn’t allow chewing. They had all the bases pretty well covered with respect to a free lunch. Probably needed more samosas and spring rolls as they disappeared faster than those eels on eel soup. My friend commented that the chicken was too greasy and on any other day this would have bothered me. Today I would have happily bathed in the greasy goodness.
The sandwiches were some sort of egg salad and tasted amazing. Being the foundation of any lunch it is important that the sandwiches are decent, and luckily for the hospital they were. The wraps were of a good size as it took two bites to eat them.

After the typical first course of sammies, wraps and chicken I moved on to the sweet side of things and tried a slice. It was clearly brought, but had a good icing to rest of the slice ratio. The fruit gets kudos because it was cut up and included mango, you know a good fruit assortment when it has mango in it.

Overall this was your bog standard free lunch that definitely satisfied me. It didn’t really push the boundaries in terms of creativity and presentation but hey it’s Masterton. There was leftover food that was handed out at the end of the day so they deserve a shit load of credit for that. Let’s see how they rated.

Taste- 4.5/6 stars
Appearance- 2/4 stars
Originality-1.5/4 stars

Overall- 8/14 stars

Larry

Osteria del Toro review

I was very fortunate to have another meal out at the expense of another person, thanks Rob! The name of this place made me very intrigued and was wondering if there was going to be some sort of Spanish bull theme going on.

The setting was mind blowing; I must of looked ridiculous as I spent 10 minutes looking round the place like a newborn who is still figuring out its vision. It was a Mediterranean style restaurant. There were sculptures attached to the pillars and an unbelievable mirror frame that had the angel babies things sculpted into it, it looked like it cost around about half of what I pay the uni each year in tuition fees. Even going to the toilet provided plenty of visual stimuli; you got to piss in urinals that were alcoves! I felt like I was on the set of gladiator going to toilet in the king’s private bathroom. The waiter’s and waitresses were dressed well with waistcoats and ties. They even went the extra mile and hired a dude who looked like a greasy Italian. This was offset however by the ginga that was waitering. Their service was very prompt and polite and made no hesitation to top up your drink, always a good sign of service.

I finally stopped admiring the setting and got to work on the menu. I think there was just the right amount of meal options. Not too much that it feels like reading a book and not enough that you feel short changed. The problem was I had no idea what each dish was, I could make out the meat but Zeus knows what it came with. There were gourmet pizzas, pasta dishes and a good variety of your classic meat dishes. I finally made a decision after asking what everyone else is getting and ordered the veal. While deciding there was Turkish bread being handed round. It was good bread but they weren’t generous with the garlic, it tasted like they got a little bit of garlic on a toothpick and spread it on.

While I waiting I enjoyed several bottles of estrella beer that seemed to fill up the glasses provided perfectly. It was a smooth drop and certainly beat the goon and budget sparkling lemon I usually drink. I also engaged in small talk with my delightful company sometimes achieving a medium to full length conversation.

My meal arrived and I was very excited. It was slow roasted veal with crushed potato and spinach. Everything was cooked beautifully. The serving size was the right amount to let you know this place is more about quality than quantity but still leaves you satisfied. There were just the right amount of ingredients but I felt there could have been more flavour injected into the meal. Maybe a more out there marinade? Something extra was needed to achieve that fancy restaurant kind of taste.

I was over the moon when I found out we were allowed deserts. I ordered the Baklava, which is baked filo with pistachio nut crumble and vanilla bean ice cream. On first glimpse I was wondering what the heck did I order. On first taste however every single bit of regret was overpowered by the euphoria I had from the taste of this dish. The savouriness of the filo combined with the intense sweetness of the pistachio nut crumble stimulated the shit out of my taste centre. The vanilla ice cream worked well with the filo giving the dish a good balance. This desert was very impressive and one of the best I’ve tried. Better than my flatmate’s donut thingies which looked like a bunch of turds on a plate. It was nice but didn’t have the same divinity of my desert.
Overall I would recommend this restaurant. You may need to get an overdraft or course related costs to pay for the bill, as it seems like these guys are trying to pay off all their exquisite pieces of art. It is an appropriate restaurant if you have a date and you want it to end successfully.

Rating

Setting- 5/5
Taste-5/6
Presentation-4/5
Service-4.5/5
Total-18.5/21

Cheers
Larry

Newtown McDonalds

Not really a review here, i'm just ratted out cause my drink in my cheeseburger combo was actually 50% ice, how cold do you think we want our drinks? Also an added note to everyone, ask to get your buns steamed its worth it.
Larry

Zico-Italian restuarant and bar

ZICO is an Italian restaurant and bar and on first glance I suppose that is obvious because it says it on the sign. Zico is also an Italian football player so it seems appropriate to eat at this place while that soccer event thing is on. Inside they do try to portray Italian culture through their clever use of what I think is Italian art and photos of Italian stuff. They also have that cliché Italian music playing pleasantly in the background. All these attempts to capture the Italian experience are ruined by the waitresses who clearly aren’t Italian. They don’t even try to use accents! I think they should a job requirement as not only are they supplementing the setting, the waitresses will become twice as hot with an accent.

The menu has plenty of choice, kinda felt like reading a short story. They did use a lot of Italian for the names of their meals which made it bloody difficult to know what I was ordering. I always have the philosophy though that if you can’t read or pronounce the item on the menu then it must be good. I ordered the lamb cutlets and beef Mignon, two meats will be better than one right? We also ordered your typical breads for the table because going out for tea and not having garlic bread is like missing out on the pre ball drinks before going to the actual ball sober. The bread was good, the normal bread had a similar texture to stale bread but the garlic bread was had a better texture. They came with a parsley dip and an olive oil and vinaigrette dip. Another sign of a decent restaurant, both were incredibly tasty.

We ordered a Merlot, I was an amateur and did not note what year or what vineyard it was from a silly mistake on my behalf. Not as silly as how the waitress looked trying to open a cork bottle with an opener from the $2 shop. The wine was smooth and rich with the taste of grapes and not too heavy. It would compliment the meal I ordered unlike my mother who ordered fish, clearly my critic skills were not from her genome.

The main arrived which consisted of the two meats, a superbly cylindrical shaped bit of mash, a couple of tomatoes and a random lemon. What was with the lemon? I didn’t know if I should eat it with the meal or use the juice from it on my cutlets and Mignon. I wasn’t advised so left it out in distaste. The meat was cooked well, rare could do with a sauce or marinade but I suppose they wanted to focus on the quality of the meat. While my meat was cooked to my liking my sister’s steak resembled a freshly cut piece of muscle despite ordering it to be cooked medium.

There was also a side of fries with a rich tomato sauce that actually tasted like tomatoes, this place dominates the dips.

I was satisfied with the meal knowing too well I was going to get a bunch of free food at a 21^st later on. We didn’t order desert despite being asked twice, once by our waitress and another by a rookie waiter whose face resembled a sunburnt beachball. This was my first real taste at Italian food. Italian always made me think of pizza or spaghetti or jersey shore. I now know it also incorporates flavoursome dips, a kind of tomatoey taste and undercooked meat.

Zico Rating

As I said the rating will be different for this review as it is a bit different to the free sandwiches and savouries we get occasionally. I have a rating for setting (5 stars), taste (6 stars), presentation (5 stars) and service.(5 stars) , adding up to 21 stars

Setting- 4/5

Taste-4/6

Presentation-3/5

Service- 3.5/5

Total- 14.5/ 21 stars

Cheers

Larry

Hi guys sorry for the delay between posts, blogger has been stuffing up and not allowing me to put videos on. The KFC blog is not far away and a review of a restaurant in town, for the time being here is my attempt to eat a tablespoon of cinnamon.

Wellington Public Hospital-dining experience from an inpatient

I’ve gone and dislocated my hip so I have been given the opportunity to rate the food at Wellington public hospital. Being in the public system still recovering from a recession I did not expect much. I will give an overall rating based on 4 meals because honestly they all taste pretty much the same.

Saturday night dinner

I was admitted late so missed out on the fresh courses so had to have a nuked frozen meal. The dish tonight was roast lamb, mash and vegetables, and it was microwaved hmmmm. So everything was against them from the start. The only way they could pull off a decent roast lamb frozen meal is if they worked at Nasa or if I had suffered a brain haemorrhage which severely damaged the taste centres in my cerebral cortex. The “roast lamb” arrived in patties accompanied by mash and typical mixed vegetables. If they put the lamb between some burger buns and chucked some Big Mac sauce on it, then it would have been semi legit. Not even my haziness from the truck load of painkillers I was on could cover my distaste for this meal. One positive from the meal was that it came with ice cream afterwards with some cubed jelly, a minimal amount but enough to cheer me up.

Sunday Breakfast

Can’t be bothered putting this into sentences.
Porridge-Water mixed with a bit of flour I think
Toast-appalling toast to jam ratio
Coffee-Good for instant


Sunday lunch

After a less than satisfying breakfast I was looking forward to the “sausage hotpot” with a side of pumpkin soup. What I got was devilled sausages public hospital style. It consisted of sizzlers (I think) cooked in a sauce that seemed like a fancy tomato sauce. It was served with a side of carrots and broccoli, with no mash. What a debacle. Mash is the foundation of devilled sausages; you cripple the dish without it. Then again this was supposed to be a ‘sausage hotpot’ but it didn’t come in any kind of pot so who knows what was going on. What is with this hospital and chucking fancy names on ratty meals?
There was no pumpkin soup with my meal; apparently I did not miss much. My ward mate described it as water drained through a pumpkin with a dash of whatever was coming out of my other ward mate’s catheter.


Sunday night dinner

A fresh meal tonight! No excuses for this meal.
I ordered chicken and on first appearance the chicken aspect of the meal looked similar to what my cat Mozart regurgitates after it scoffs herself silly. A point of hilarity here, the dish was called Tahitian chicken on the piece of paper that comes with the meal. What was the point in trying to add an authentic element to it like that when it was blatantly chucked together from an expired Wattie’s can? Worth noting however was the pumpkin mash which had a good consistency unlike the potato mash which had the consistency of porridge. They did include beans with this meal as well and accordingly to the old guy opposite me, are quite expensive this time of year. He was just transferred from neurology though…
One of the other dudes in my ward had scrambled eggs, I would have been well satisfied with that meal.
I once again received ice cream with this meal exactly the same as the night before except for a different flavoured jelly that was a little denser. Geez I need some more Ketamine.

Overall the food does serve its purpose-it keeps you alive…just.
This sort of food brings back memories of airline food. Both systems with strict budgets which is evident in the taste, both have meals with fancy names that make you think you’re going to get a kick-arse meal but leave you very disappointed, and both are eaten in company you wish wasn’t there. This rating will not be pretty. Further blogs could compare hospital and airline food because they are in a whole different league to normal food (in a bad way).

Rating

Taste- .5/4 stars
Appearance- 1/4 stars
Originality-1/4 stars
Overall-2.5/12 stars

The reason why appearance gets a whole star is that they were served on a plastic platter which always added an element of surprise to it. This excitement did not last long and always ended in bitter disappointment. Kinda like at Christmas when I open presents from Grandma expecting something awesome (sorry Gran!).

Afternoon Tea provided by the Maori health crew

Well it's been a while! I have had nothing to really blog about lately because med school has been average at giving us free stuff, luckily Maori health came to the rescue.

This free afternoon tea was a much needed relief from an afternoon where I would have preferred to have contracted Fournier's disease. On first appearance there was a good variety especially for an afternoon tea (were they trying to make up for something?). On offer was salmon and chicken buns, cold crumbed chicken breasts, club sandwiches, some funny pudding things, and bread with various dips (fancy!).
The club sandwiches had standard fillings but their potentially good flavour was masked by the amount of mustard that was lathered on, simple mistake. On a more positive note the salmon buns gave me a semi. There was a good salmon:salad:bun ratio making them very tasty.
I tried the chicken, it was cold, kinda dry but a nice addition to the afternoon tea. I am never one to complain about more meat being on offer.
The bread and assorted dips were very impressive and I unfortunately had to double dip here in order to try all the dips with one piece of bread (sorry guys!). Very original tasty dips with good quality bread.
Last I tried the pudding things. I went halves with Rob cause I had eaten a fair bit and was reaching capacity. I didn't even know what was going on with these things. It was like a mushy apple crumble cake thing with a berry base which provided some flavour. This afternoon tea was clearly not focussed on the sweet side of things.

Overall an impressive afternoon tea with only a couple of let downs. These however did not really dull my excitement as a free afternoon tea to me is the same as a big mac voucher to an Ethiopian.

Rating
Taste-2.5/4 stars
Originality-2.5/4 stars
Appearance-2/4stars
Overall-7.5/12 stars

Cake competition at the end of advanced clinical skills

I don't have a lot to say here this event does not really meet the criteria of having food 'provided' as we put all the effort in. We had some wine provided which tasted like it was fresh out of the country cask. There were no beers provided. The med school wasn't really meeting us half way here. The students put a lot of effort in and all we get is shit wine and no beer what a shame.

I was lucky enough to get hold of some images from the cake comp, as you can see a lot of hard work went into these fine creations.

The winner was the H1N1 cake which is pictured first. To all the competitors well done and my birthday is on the 19th of August if you want to put your baking skills to the test again.

Dinner at the Marae

Kai at the Marae is considered tapu or sacred if you would, with this in mind I hoped I could move on from the average afternoon tea to a more sacred dinner.
Playing touch had increased my hunger to "I'm gonna bite someone soon if I don't eat soon." This added on with being last in line while experiencing post shower sweats was fueling my impatient hunger pains.

The selection of meat was good with beef and chicken on offer with also would you believe it seafood salad! This rating had the potential to be bias because of this dish. However there was fruit added to this salad which I felt was unnecessary, since when did fruit apart from lemon go well with creatures of the sea?
The roast potatoes were prepared well and were yellow. Salads were nothing spectacular but were a good addition. Roast pumpkin was on offer and had the orangely fluffy texture I liked but in saying that roast pumpkin isn't exactly rocket science to cook it's actually food science just not that difficult food science.

One major criticism of the meal was the lack of gravy with the roast meat and vegetables. This is the equivalent of sex without a blowjob first, of fish and chips without tomato sauce. I mean they had mayo with the salad so I just couldn't understand the roast without gravy.

Desert was also provided. Strawberries,cream,ice cream,fruit salad and jelly. Not ridiculously fancy stuff but it served it's purpose. The availability of fresh fruit on the tables complimented the desert menu and was a hit with my classmates so has a special audience vote there.

This was a vast improvement on afternoon tea and I can honestly say I did enjoy my meal, but mainly because I was so hungry and was allowed seconds. This is always an easy way to impress me. Leaving this out of the picture and taking into account that this blog is strictly professional this typical Marae meal may not rate that highly as it was not out of this world impressive. Lets see how it went.

Originality- nothing really original here 1/4 stars
Taste-2/4 stars (might have been improved if gravy was provided)
Appearance-1/4 stars
Added star for audience vote
Overall-5/12 stars

An added side note
Several of my classmates came down with food poisoning after the Marae visit. It seemed like my flatmate was having his stomach wrung out like a wet rag. Since I did not come down with food poisoning the rating will not be affected. To all those who came down with food poisoning and spent the weekend winging, harden the fuck up.
Larry

Afternoon Tea at the Marae following the Powhiri

The Kai following the Powhiri should really meet the standards of the initial greeting and welcoming onto the Marae, on this occasion it did not. I was quite hungry as I had a light lunch so was definitely holding out for the free kai.
The selection was crackers with cheese and some relish, a couple of cakes and a solid selection of fruit, kinda what you would get when you do your annual visit to your grandparents for afternoon tea. The pick of the afternoon tea was probably the crackers I really didn't have much to work with here. This was no Porirua Marae (CCW), which had spectacular food.
Apperance-1/4 stars
Originality-1/4 stars
Taste-1/4 stars
Overall- 3/12 stars

Morning Tea-Sponsored by NZMSA

Had a very limited selection today, thanks a lot NZMSA. My flatmate noted that the ginger cake things tasted like they had been made in the Phillipines and then sent over last year.
There also wasn't enough sandwiches of which were pretty stock standard. They just had your average meats and fillings, I could of done pretty similar but better. There isn't much else to comment on here. Aren't you guys meant to be encouraging us to join your society?

Larry's rating
Apparance-1/4 stars
Originality-1/4 stars
Taste-2/4 stars
Overall- 4/12 stars

1st day of 4th year-A social event provided by the Wellington school of Medicine

This was meant to be a social event but already knew each other so was an excuse to eat some free stuff and drink some free alcohol. The free alcohol was a highlight but my previous weekend which involved drinking a concoction called "green goblin" before the races made me reluctant to make the most of this opportunity.
I enjoyed how the two tables were set out. One table for hot pastry type foods, the other for sweet stuff.
I started with the chicken filo. The chicken was cooked well which we all know is important and the pastry was nice and flakey. Good start med school.
The fried bread and pate was by my honest opinion shit and didn't really belong on the hot food table. That was really the only thing on that table that ratted me out.
The lamingtons were presented well and were worth noting. I did not get to sample them but i'm sure they were good.
When I saw that my buddy Cam was sampling a danish I thought it looked amazing so I thought I'd get in on that action. Man what an experience. The sweetness of the chocolate with the airiness of the pastry complimented each other well. The danish and the chocolate danish were winners on the day as well as the free speights. Was gutted I couldn't get on the wine buzz though.

Larry's rating
Originality- 2.5/4 stars
Apperance- 2/4 stars
Taste- 2.5/4 stars
Overall- 7/12 stars