food, glorious food.

Now comes a very important blog post, while I could tell you about adventures and show you picture of volcanoes and shit, I'll give it a rest. This blog post is all about FOOD. Now with 28 days, 2 finals and one excruciating day of traveling left I thought I'd reflect of the food stuffs that have kept me afloat since Ive gotten here. Here is a list of the best and brightest of New Zealand college kid cuisine:

Indomie Noodles

These noodles are kind of like the New Zealand replacement for Ramen. Believe me, Ramen just doesn't exist here, not in the correct form at least. However, these noodles go above and beyond the call of packaged noodles. They come with seasoning, and assortment of 3 weird sauces and just when you thought it couldn't get better, dried onions.
Also, these noodles cut straight thought the whole "broth" shit. Yes, you drain the water and just make this kind of spiced noodle slop. I will miss you Indomie, I will miss you so much. Did I mention that they have a BBQ flavor, because they do.

Mine never looked this good, but like, you get it.

Tim Tam

Tim tams are an act of god. Various fillings sandwiched between two cookie wafers and then slathered in mild chocolate, these things should be outlawed. Tim Tams are a big fucking deal here, even Australia liked them so much they decided to name a koala after them.
They have replaced Oreos as the cookie that you eat an entire sleeve of in order to fill emotional voids.
I was taught that the best way to enjoy these cookies is to bite two corners of the cookie and use it as a straw to sop up hot cocoa or warm milk. When it passes through it turns the cookie into a gooey mess that melts in your face. What will I do without it them? Lose 15 pounds, that's what.

Toasties

Toasties are glorified grilled cheese sandwiches. Cheese, meat, fruit, or veggies are all grilled and slathered in between two pieces of thin buttered bread that is then toasted on a griddle until perfections. The best part about these things is that if you find them at a good truck stop, they're about $3. A personal favorite, and a combination that has changed my troubled relations with grilled cheese is ham, cheese and pineapple. What can I say...

Sushi Pac

Now this is a chain that really needs to catch on. Cheap, fresh and delicious sushi for insanely cheap prices. I've grown accustomed to what i affectionately call "the log". A 4 inch tube of sushi roll, unsliced that is meant to be eaten as if one is an animal. At 2 bucks a pop, they're a complete steal. They even have a twitter which i follow and a facebook pace. This has filled the void that Kumo left when I came, lets hope that Kumo can refill that when I return. Sounds kind of sexual almost, which makes sense based on how I feel about sushi in general.

Pascals Pineapple Lumps

These little nuggets are squares of pineapple flavored marshmallow covered in milk chocolate. When I first had these I was pretty put off. They were chewy, sweet and made my face hurt but after receiving some advice from Niamh, I gave them a second chance. She advised me to throw them in the freezer for a few hours. This makes them crunchy and snappy and straight up delicious. Lovely little lumps.

Meat Pies

Meat pies are about 10 bites worth of heaven. At about the size of the palm of your hand its a pastry bowl filled with some sort of combination of meat and cheese. Yes they are as incredible as they sound. I have learned to bypass the yellow colored gas station versions, If you want a great pie, its all about the tiny mom and pop bakery and don't you dare buy one from a place where there aren't at least 3 burly men in short shorts standing in line ahead of you. When it comes to pies, you've got to follow the locals, they don't fuck around with their national cuisine.


Ok with all of this praise, you may ask, where has New Zealand gone wrong? For as many wonderful things that Ive had, i've had some equally disgusting concoctions.

Watties Tomato Sauce

Nasty. The first time I had the sorry excuse for ketchup i was enjoying y first set of fish and chips. I not only had to pay for ketchup, it came in a can and more resembled tomato paste than ketchup. Over the past few months, I must admit, I've grown accustomed to its bland taste but you better believe that I'm ready to get Heinz back in my life. Watties, GTFO.

Spaghetti on Toast

What, WHAT? yeah, this is a thing. Imagine making a perfectly good piece of toast, putting it on a plate and right before you eat it, a small child run over and dumps a can of spaghettios on top of it. Think about how that would taste, think about how you would feel. No one deserves that abuse, certainly not toast, a breakfast staple for centuries. Fuck that, fuck tomato soup with pasta in it and fuck the person who ever thought that it was acceptable.

Meat Flavored Potato Chips/Snacks

This is wrong on so many levels. Going through the aisles of my local super market for the first time, I noticed the over whelming amount of snack food modeled after real food tastes. Burger Rings? Chicken flavored rice crackers? Crackers with bacon INSIDE of them? Honey baked ham flavored potato chips? This has to stop. Imagine a snack food, covered in the seasoning packet from your favorite Ramen. Yeah I'm crying too y'all.

BBQ Sauce on Pizza
Ok I'm a pizza snob (who isn't?), I shouldn't even start this fight with New Zealand, but when i order a mushroom artichoke pizza, and you serve it to me slathered in barbecue sauce I'm going to start crying. After this fiasco its safe to say I haven't ordered pizza here again. I have been abstaining form possibly the most delicious food ever based on principle. There is one halfway decent place that models itself after New York pizza, but there was something fundamentally missing from the pie. What was it you may ask? Italians. Seems they've avoided this place like the plague and all ran straight to Melbourne Australia. I blame these Italians for New Zealands national acceptance of spaghetti on toast. I cry for my people every day here. Perhaps ill move back and show these guys how it's done.

Smellington (Wellington) Roadtrip weekend

Took a nice long road trip to check out the country's capital for a few days. Eight hours to be exact. The city was beautiful, had lovely people, a wonderful art scene and some amazing food.


We spent the weekend in open air markets, meandering through museums and eating in parks. The first full day, we found a farmers market out by the water. There I found the most delicious dumplings I have ever had in my short life. Even though they were a bit pink still when i bit into them, these dumplings made me feel invincible, and certainly wasn't going to wast the 4 dollars i had paid for them on the slim chance id get sick.

The culprits of my stomach cramps, but just look at them. Could you have said no?

After lunch we headed to the museum. The Te Papa museum in the heart of the city must have been one of the best museums i'd ever been to. With a different part of New Zealand themed information on each floor we spent hours wandering inside. There first floor had corridors for natural history, ecology, history, art, and culture. My favorite exhibit must have been the immigration exhibit. Part of the exhibit was a large filing cabinet that corresponded to an individual who had actually took the plunge and came to New Zealand, with our without their families. Inside of each drawer there were pictures, personal items, diaries and passports all collected through centuries of immigration to the country. How brave these people must have been to abandon their homes and start again anew in a place that was actually a world away. The rest of the exhibits were breathtaking as well, lots of interactive sets and even a earthquake simulation house! how fitting, haha. That night after returning to our room i realized exactly where the worst place is to be when one is having "digestion problems". The top bunk of a bed, when a very large and scary german woman is sleeping underneath.

A completely acceptable dinner of bread, cheese, Italian salami, grapes and of course some fermented grapes as well.

The next day I woke up feeling much better, swore off the dumpling and we wandered around the suburbs of the city, checking out an independently owned art gallery in lower hut. Who knew there was such a thriving arts scene? The three of us had a great time, if it wasn't for the loud German girls in our hostel on the last morning. They had woken up at 5am to leave and woke us all up. Why you may ask? Because Germans are incapable of whispering. It's almost a fact at this point.

On our way home we stopped in a quiet town named Bulls. This place did justice to its name as the entire town had a strong smell of cow manure. However rank the town itself was, they did have a lot of pride and humor for their odd little town. They named things around the town in bull themed puns. For example, the bank was renamed "bankabull" and the bathroom "relieveable". I guess you'd have to have a good scene of humor to live in a place that smelt like bulls. Despite the smell, we found a great bakery that had wonderful mince and cheese pies. We devoured a few before heading back on the road to Auckland.

How witty are these guys?

This trip was a ton of fun, though the 8 hours of driving was pretty grueling. Wellington was a lovely city and almost what I had expected Auckland to be like. Definitely worth the gas money for a visit, if not for those dumplings, mmmm. Unfortunately its getting a bit too cold here to continue hiking, and while its great visiting cities, I'm already homesick for the mountain trails.