Italian Tapas at Volare

VOLARE Ristorante & Aparitivo Bar

Cuisine: Italian

Address: 85 The Strand, Tauranga

Phone: 07 5786030

Website

Drinks: Wine, beer, Aperitivi, leaning Italian

Reservations: for dinner in the ristorante

I've been wondering if the Italian restaurants in town have some sort of vendetta against this blog. It seems that every time I eat at one of them they immediately change their menu. 

Most recently, Bar Centrale completely revamped their food the day after I reviewed them, and took off the menu literally every single thing I wrote about. And Volare did the same thing. We only went in for a couple of pasta dishes, both of which were excellent. In the review I mentioned it was a shame they had dropped the "Tapas" they once offered in the downstairs bar. Of the pasta dishes, one immediately disappeared altogether and the other is now only on the lunch menu. But on the VERY bright side, the "Tapas" have returned!

I realise that Tapas are small Spanish snacks but some Italian restaurants have been appropriating the description, and why not? Bottom line is that they're small plates of yummy things, good for sharing.

We ended up back at Volare again, early on a quiet Sunday evening, because I had a huge hankering for an Amaretto Sour ($16) and our Amaretto at home ran out. It turned out the restaurant was slammed on the Saturday and had just about run out themselves. Owner Luigi came to the rescue and suggested one Amaretto Sour and one Frangelico Sour. Both of them nut liqueuers? It might work... I'm always up for an experiment and a new idea!

The darker one of these two in the pic is the Amaretto, the other the Frangelico. I know. Like that helps. Sorry. Just getting my Amaretto Sour vibe on - damn I really have fallen for those things...

After that shot of instant gratification we couldn't resist some small plates. From the (new) menu we had:

• ARANCINI (V) $13.5 Fried saffron risotto cakes, Mozzarella, Panko crumbs
• CRUDO $16 Fresh fish, basil oil, green chili, saffron aioli, crostini
• CARPACCIO DI MANZO $16 Shaved beef, Tonnato sauce, fennel, rocket, crostini 

And once again we were knocked out with all three dishes. The arancini oozed with melted mozzarella, and the crudo was simply sensational, the accompaniments perfectly setting off the fish. As well as those listed, there was also a bit of lime/lemon flesh which popped in the mouth with little citrus hits. Great stuff.

The carpaccio was also good, cut as thinly as it should be and delicious. The fennel and crunchy deep-fried capers worked really well. My one reservation is that there was possibly too much sauce, something of a mayo overload that masked the meat a bit, though some would possibly enjoy the extreme creaminess.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By this time I needed another drink so had a glass of Jules Taylor Pinot Gris 2020 ($11.50) which was as well-balanced and nuanced as all Jules' wines seem to be, with enough acid to cut through the aioli and sauce. Yum. That's a wine term BTW - yum.

And as we were sitting on the deck in the fading sun it struck us that Volare does one of those rarest of things for a restaurant: it doesn't just sell you food and drink, it sells you a lifestyle. The food here looks a little more rustic than that at Bar Centrale or Sugo but has an indefinable timeless confidence - the crudo, along with an Italian drink, transports you, from the Strand to some little continental street where you sip Prosecco and nibble on something Italian and all becomes right in the world. Well that's how it seemed on Sunday.

And here's a classy touch: as we paid, Luigi said that he was deducting the price of the glass of wine since the Frangelico Sour experiment - good idea though it may have been - hadn't been entirely successful. And he was absolutely right: hazelnut just doesn't work the same way as almond in a sour. But we were happy to give it a crack, good or bad, so the free glass of wine was both unexpected and generous. Go Volare!

NOTE: It may seem like I know the people in the restaurants I write about, but I don't. If I do I'll say so. And I've never received anything free for writing about them, though I'd absolutely accept pretty much anything offered. I'm not proud. Or crazy. But if I should get anything complimentary I'll certainly flag it: sunlight is the best aperitif...

Lunch at Bluebiyou

BLUEBIYOU

Cuisine: New Zealand

Address: 559 Papamoa Beach Road, Papamoa

Phone: 07 5722099

Website

Drinks: fully licensed 

Reservations: recommended

 

It seems like Bluebiyou in Papamoa has been around forever. It has been through many iterations though I think it was first started by Jo and Penny who now have The White House in Te Puna. Or perhaps they're just the first people I remember. It has had several owners since then.

 

Luigi from Volare, which has recently reopened in the Tauranga CBD, was there a couple of years ago. I don't know who's currently in charge but the place is light and breezy, the view spectacular and the food very pleasant. Sit sipping a glass of wine and looking out over the Papamoa Domain and the sea on a sunny day - as a group of us did at lunchtime last week - and you will feel everything is okay in the world.

 

 

The restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner six days a week, and also does a brisk trade in functions so it is a big a well-organised operation. 

 

We were there for a work lunch and the place was about half full. I imagine this will change over summer. This is one place you will certainly need bookings for as I suspect every visiting holiday-maker will flock through the doors.

 

BTW, I should apologise in advance (as I so often seem to do in these reviews): we didn't eat a huge variety of food so this isn't a very comprehensive report. And once again I was a bit negligent with the photos. We started with a couple of plates of...

 

Olives & Bread (V) $12
marinated mixed olives, grilled sourdough, whipped brown butter    

...and I wish I'd photographed them because they were damn fine plates of bread. Best of all though was the butter. I'm guessing it was regular butter with some "brown" butter ("burnt" butter, whatever you call it) whipped back in. What a brilliant simple idea. I will be doing this every time guests visit from now on - it was delicious!

OK. I said we didn't eat a great variety of food. Two dishes in fact. Everyone either had the fish of the day, which was snapper, or the pork. To be precise:

Fish of the Day (GF) $34
pan-fried market fish, caper & citrus emulsion, tomato, cucumber & feta salad, duck fat chips

 

Pork & Scallops (GF) $36
braised pork belly, sweet soy glaze, pan-fried scallops, fondant potatoes, carrot anise puree, pickled fennel

And both were very good. I had the pork and it was tender and tasty with a really well-made carrot puree. The only miss was the two scallops, both pretty much raw, which some people might enjoy in their molluscs but not me. The fish was reportedly excellent (everyone certainly ate it all!) and I like the presentation with skin still on. The duck fat chips were also very popular.

 

To accompany we had a bottle or two of The Winemaker's Wife Pinot Gris 2020 ($58) from Waipara, which was beautifully balanced and fruity with good acidity. I believe it has won gold medals; an excellent lunch wine.

 

There we go. I don't feel like I've got a lot to say here: the food was fine, good solid middle of the road tucker with the occasional modern touch, and the service was friendly and efficient. I suspect it is pitched pretty perfectly for the Kiwi diner. It's actually not dissimilar in style to The White House, a fitting coincidence given Jo and Penny had Bluebiyou all those years ago. But the food here does come served with an amazing view!

Asian street food at Zozo

zozo

Cuisine: Asian street food

Address: 113 The Strand, Tauranga

Phone: 07 5790909

Website

Drinks: wine, beer, etc

Reservations: sometimes, for dinner

 

Zozo started life two or three years back as Viet de Cuisine, a modern Vietnamese restaurant which I think slightly confused people with the obvious inclusion of more French-influenced Vietnamese food on the menu. France had a big influence on the nation's food - particularly obvious in the love of baguettes - but the mix of French and Vietnamese flavours was possibly a little strange for Tauranga.

 

So the restaurant sensibly re-established itself as serving "Asian Street Food". There's still a primary fous on Vietnam (the phos and other things stayed) but now they draw from Chinese, Thai and other cultures as well and have left behind the Gallic influence.

 

The menu is split into Small and Large plates, with extra sections for rice and noodle dishes and salads. There is an extra menu of "Tauranga Specials" which I'm guessing might have emerged from the recent Taste Tauranga event. Three of us called in for an early midweek dinner and decided to just check out the Small Plates for maximum sharing variety.

 

Actually, it was a flawed approach. We probably should have ordered a salad instead of something for a more rounded meal. And the minute I saw noodles going to tables I felt like those. But despite its lack of balance, everything we had was great to eat and quite interesting. And I thought it was pretty fairly priced.

 

• Summer Rolls (4pcs) - Fresh rolls, prawn, pork, peanut, herbs, “nuoc cham” $9.00
• Crispy Aubergine (V)(G) - Crumbed eggplants, shiso, garlic, honey sauce $9.00
• Chicken Skewers - Chicken thigh, kaffir lime, shallot, chili sauce $12.00
• Popping Prawns (G) - Dill, kaffir, curry leaves, chili powder, crumbed, peanut sauce $15.00
• Pork Rib Garlic - Oven baked, dry chili, special sauce $18.00
• Popcorn Chicken - $15 

clockwise from top left: Chicken Skewers, Pork Rib, Popcorn Chicken, Popping Shrimp, Summer Rolls, Crispy Aubergine

A few observations: 

• The summer rolls are very good, fresh bright and clean with the accompanying zing of nuoc cham. It's a great dipping sauce. 
• The crispy aubergines are a real winner. I'm not sure which tradition they come from but they are like little crackers, quite a different texture from the deep fried eggplant at Macau or elsewhere. They were a BIG hit. 
• The chicken skewers were moist and delicious. The chili sauce with them was a shriracha.
• The pork rib was moist if not very garlicky. The sauce leaned towards a Singaporean chili/garlic sauce.
• The chicken popcorn came from the "Tauranga Specials" menu and was unusual: Chicken, coated with a dust of what seemed to be ground roasted rice and some anchovy element. It was very slightly fishy/salty and very enjoyable.
• The Popping Prawns knocked me out - the prawns themselves were coated in a crisp batter, but it was mainly the "sprinkle" of deep fried ingredients (Dill, kaffir, curry leaves, chili powder) scattered over the top and the Thai satay sauce that lifted it. Excellent!

As far as where it sits in the Tauranga restaurant scene, Zozo is interesting. It is clearly not an "authentic" traditional Asian restaurant in the sense of Dumpling Delight or Sichuan Style. Nor is it the full "Modern Pan-Asian" restaurant in the style of Macau. Instead it sits somewhere in between with dishes like its pho soups very straight and other dishes adding left-field touches. It's a bit of a balancing act and from what we ate they make a very good job of it. Oh, and I should mention that the service was helpful and friendly. 

 

(ONE LITTLE FINAL NOTE: the drinks list is rudimentary, with a mixture of apparently randomly chosen wine. No Gewurztraminer which would go really well with the food. They also have some cocktails which I wish I'd tried, because a couple sound impressively weird. On another trip I will definitely sample a Zozo Daiquiri which includes amongst the regular ingredients both orange juice and vinegar. Wow.  

A Piña Colada

Yes, that's right, a Piña Colada, that much-maligned drink which you invariably get served terrible watery versions of on every Pacific Island holiday. I come to it now because last week I cooked a couple of my favourite Thai dishes and as usual I had some coconut milk left over. So what's a boy to do other than make a Piña Colada?

Because lurking behind that dubious coconutty slurry that graces every Fiji Happy Hour is actually a delicious tropical cocktail. In New Zealand bars it is, however, one that is currently absolutely out of fashion. Negronis and sophisticated slightly bitter cocktails are the order of the day right now, Piña Coladas represent the very depth of bad taste.

Well screw that I say. I like something sweet and fruity that makes me think of golden sands and gently lapping waves. And that's what this recipe does for me. It's my own personal one so feel free to suggest your own. Some people add lime juice. In fact in certain specialist circles overseas the Piña Colada has become quite refined and complicated: I saw a recipe the other day using 4 different rums! As you might suspect, these newer styles are usually considerably stronger in alcohol.  

OK. A little history...

The Piña Colada – Spanish for strained pineapple – was officially invented on August 15 1954 by a bartender named Ramón “Monchito” Marrero at the Caribe Hilton’s Beachcomber Bar in San Juan, Puerto Rico. For the next 35 years, he personally served his cocktail while he bartended at the hotel. Come 1978, the Piña Colada was declared the official drink of Puerto Rico.

I hope you don't think this too common (and possibly too kitsch!) to offer a recipe for. There's generally a reason for the popularity of things and you often just have to do them properly to realise what that reason is. I reckon this is a Piña Colada done properly.

PIŃA COLADA

Ingredients

• 30ml light rum
• 60ml coconut milk
• 90ml pineapple juice
• 15ml simple syrup (50/50 water/sugar)
  

Method

• Shake everything with plenty of ice
• Strain into a glass over ice
• Garnish with a paper umbrella and/or pineapple wedge (NOT a bloody cherry)
  

The are a couple of things worth considering that people sometimes miss, things I think really make or break this drink. Firstly there's the simple syrup. Back in Ramón's day they used cream of coconut which was sweeter than coconut cream. The simple syrup makes up for that and the sweetness brings the drink alive. Also, use the best pineapple juice you can get, unsweetened 100% pure - it really does makes a difference.

NOTE: In case you were going to ask, I hate crushed ice, and it's a pain to make without a machine. And it makes things watery. I'm also not a fan of "frozen" versions, which are blended with crushed ice, but each to their own.  

ANOTHER NOTE: I reckon coconut cream is too heavy. The original recipe thinned it with regular cream but even that seems too rich to me. Try the coconut milk you didn't use in the Thai stir-fry... or if you're making two or three use those little 180ml cans from the supermarket - a perfect size!

LAST NOTE: This isn't a very boozy drink. If that troubles you there is an easy solution: add more rum if you like more rum. Doubling it does no harm at all.

Black Bear review

BLACK BEAR (2020)

Director: Lawrence Michael Levine

Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Sarah Gadon, Christopher Abbot

Runtime: 104min

 

 

Black Bear is a tricksy little film, a darling of Sundance that delivers several surprises and serves up a tantalising dose of ambiguity. It runs on a career best performance from Aubrey Plaza, whose own trademark ambiguity is both referenced and used to great effect.

It's hard to know what exactly to reveal about the plot, as there is a reversal about half an hour in which requires rethinking everything that has happened up until then. But basically, Plaza is an actor/director come to stay with Gadon and Abbot's husband and wife at their rural retreat in order to get some writing done. They are a waspish passive aggressive couple, expecting a child, who bitch at each other constantly. Things slowly descend into arguments and recrimination as the first evening progresses.

Or do they? There is something a little off about the chronology and indeed everything changes, revealing a film about making a film, that explores artistic creation and the emotional and physical stimuluses required to achieve a performance. Or perhaps not required. When does emotional manipulation of an actor cross the line into abuse?

It's impressive, involving stuff, Plaza letting it all hang out and getting great support from Gadon and Abbot (he had the lead in the recent TV adaptation of Catch 22) as well as quite a large cast playing various film crew members, with a little running comedy amongst the ensemble to balance the hardcore emotional excavation. Director Levine also wrote the film and has a great eye for small details; it is a pleasure to see so many well-developed three-dimensional characters.

And the fine line that the film walks works. The journey is captivating, with much to ponder along the way. Ambiguity can sometimes do little more than frustrate but here it allows for a very satisfying experience. Oh, and yes, there really is a bear. 

RESTAURANT REVIEW INDEX

Like the film reviews, putting an index up at the start of each month seems like a good idea. Just in case anyone wants to delve into the past a little. As of this index, all the restaurants are in the Tauranga region...

B

Bar Centrale (1)

Bar Centrale (2)

C

Chidori

Clarence Bistro (1)

Clarence Bistro (2)

D

Dumpling Delight

M

Mudan

O

Oscar & Otto

R

Rice Rice Baby

S

Sichuan Style

Somerset Cottage

Sugo

T

The Barrel Room

The Cider Factorie

The White House

V

Volare

 

FILM REVIEW INDEX

BEGINNING OF DECEMBER...

I thought it might be a good idea to have an index of film reviews so you can find what's here. At the beginning of each month I'll post an updated one - that way it should be visible on the front page at all times in case anyone wants to delve into the archives. 

I feel there should be some easier way to do this but since I'm relatively new and know crap about how blogging here works, this is the best I can think of. PLEASE someone, tell me if there's a better way!

A

Ava

B

Bill & Ted Face The Music

C 

Coma (Koma)

D

The Dead Ones

The Devil All The Time 

The Doorman

G

Greenland

H

His House

Hosts

I

I'm Think Of Ending Things

L

Little Joe

M

Mank

Mulan

N

The Nest

O

On The Rocks

The Owners

P

Peninsula

Possessor

Project Power 

Q

The Quarry

R

Rebecca

The Rental

S

Sea Fever

Spontaneous

Sputnik

T

Tenet

The Trial Of The Chicago 7

W

Waiting For The Barbarians

The Wolf Of Snow Hollow

 

A quick bite at Sugo

SUGO

Cuisine: Italian

Address: 19 Wharf Street, Tauranga

Phone: 07 5714138

Website

Drinks: wine, beer, vermouth

Reservations: probably for dinner

 

Both Jan and I happened to be in town at 6.30pm one evening last week so we met up at Sugo for a quick bite. Sugo is the new Italian restaurant on Wharf Street where American restaurant Rye used to be. It  opened a couple of weeks back to a town suddenly awash with Italian restaurants. 

 

Well , maybe "awash" is exaggerating, but with the return of Volare on The Strand and the arrival of the most excellent Bar Centrale, the CBD is not exactly short of choice for Italian cuisine. 

 

Sugo has done what looks like a simple refurbishment of the space that was Rye, freshening it up a bit and adding a few subtle Italian touch. It looks bright and airy. 

 

The menu - slightly different from that currently on-line - is split into Snacks (6), Entrees (6), Main Plates (6), Neapolitan Pizza (3), Sides (3), and Dolce (7). The snacks include a couple of pizza crust options and a couple of olive dishes; the entrees are mainly salad-based; mains are five pastas plus Chicken Saltinbocca; all in all, as you would expect, very Italian and there is also a smaller vegan menu.

 

So, we started with drinks...

 

• Madam Sass Pinot Noir 2019                                      $13
• Akarua 25 Steps Pinot Noir 2018                                $15
• Bloody Gin Sour (4 Pillars Bloody Shiraz gin, whites, sugar, citrus)                                                                  $15

The Gin sour was well made, with a nice head on it from the egg white. The sweetness of the Bloody Shiraz gin worked well with the citrus of the sour. And the Madam Sass Pinot was fruity and smooth. The Akarua Pinot was much drier and probably a bit young; it was much better with food.

And the food. We just wanted to try a few snacky things so had:

 

• Italian Charcuterie, coppa pelata, salami finocchiona, prosciutto, pickles, garlic pizza crust $26
• Clevedon buffalo ricotta tortellini, pumpkin, burnt butter, sage, parmesan, pine nuts  $20 v
• Flash pan fried arrow squid, Romeso sauce, orange, rocket, almond, rosemary $16.5 gf/df
• Fries, aioli $7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was all very pleasant. You can't see the Romesco sauce in the photo but it was under the squid and was very nice. The squid dish was essentially a little fried squid with the other ingredients comprising a raw salad. It was refreshing if unexciting.

 

Unfortunately I found the ricotta in the pasta filling grainy and under-seasoned. Again that dish had a component you can't see in the photo, a pumpkin puree under the pasta, which was rich and smooth and worked well with the chunks of sweet pumpkin and pine nuts. It was an interesting comparison to Volare's take on the same dish. 

As to the charcuterie we were both a little disappointed. I have charcuterie when I go out to a restaurant because I assume they can get better quality products than I buy at the supermarket or deli. That wasn't the case here and the prosciutto was particularly average.

 

Admittedly we didn't try any of their main dishes, all of which sound and look very good indeed. But I can't help thinking that with the Italian competition in town right now Sugo has got its work cut out to stand out both from a drink and food perspective, as well as the staff, who seemed young, helpful and friendly, but not exactly the Italian specialists you find at the other rival eateries.    

Mank review

MANK (2020)

Director: Davide Fincher

Starring: Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Dance, Lily Collins

Runtime: 131min

 

 

People often say "they don't make them like that any more" and if they say that about Mank for a change it will be accurate. For the film is a thing of wonder and beauty, not only recreating a vision of Golden Era Hollywood but creating it in as close to the style of that era as can be attained. It is also dense and complex, crammed with brief glimpses of famous '30s faces and as the only other person in the cinema with me agreed afterwards, it's not going to make any money.

I know that's a kinda crass way to look at it. It feels like that scene in Inside Llewyn Davis where Llewyn plays a song for F Murray Abraham's music promoter - a beautiful haunting tune that could rip your heart out - and a stone-faced Abraham just says: "I don't see a lot of money here." That was a Coen Brothers film and the last time I had the same feeling was another film of theirs, Hail Caesar!. It finished and I thought "Damn, that was wonderful! No one's going to watch it."

But let's leave all that aside. Predicting failure seems cruel, especially when the object of the prediction is as extraordinary as Mank. As a devotee of Orson Welles with a fascination for the machinations of that Hollywood period I was happier than a monkey in a monkey tree. There is pretty much nothing that I didn't absolutely love about this film: it has remarkable cinematography, music, editing, acting, costumes, sets, and a great witty script from director David Fincher's late father, Jack.

But many of those things will be actively off-putting I would guess for a general audience...

The film's look is very low-contrast black and white. David Fincher said in a New Yorker interview that they shot in high resolution and then "took most everything and softened it to an absurd extent to try to match the look of the era. We probably lost two-thirds of the resolution in order to make it have the same feel, and then we put in little scratches and digs and cigarette burns." Don't think that this looks something like Tarantino's Grindhouse experiment, but it is an extraordinarily "soft" black and white image. This still shows the unusual look very accurately:

Arliss Howard / LB Meyer   Charles Dance / WR Hearst

And the soundtrack is mono. No flashy super-surround effects here, but warm, slightly distorted mono with an analogue feel to it. 

So on to the story. This is the tale of Herman Mankiewicz and his writing of Citizen Kane. It starts with him heading to a secluded ranch where he has been sent by Orson Welles with a secretary (Lily Collins - very good) and nurse, him to write, them to try and keep him off the booze. The film then spirals in many directions, much like Citizen Kane itself, confidently moving between flashbacks to explore Mank's relationship with the studio, his wife and friends, and the political climate. 

There is just so much to enjoy, from testy sparring with Louis B Meyer (Arliss Howard) and Irving Thalberg, to his growing friendship with Marion Davis whom Seyfried's mercurial performance does a lot to rehabilitate, and of course William Randolf Hearst himself whom Charles Dance holds back from making a monster: it is a finely judged portrait, more three dimensional that one might have expected. There's also the relationship with his wife (Tuppence Middleton), carers and brother (the famous Joseph Mankievicz, a solid Tom Pelphry) to take in.

Where the film might lose people is the politics of the era, the rising "communist/socialist" menace and the studios' pushback against it. It seems a diversion, even if it contribtutes to Mank's increasingly fractious relationship with his studio masters. 

Along the way there are more than a few delightful Citizen Kane homages, in the set-ups and lighting, all lovely little touches that are totally integrated. And playing Spot The Star is fun as famous names and faces pop into view, from John Houseman (Sam Troughton) to David O Selznick (Toby Leonard Moore), Josef Von Sternberg (Paul Fox) to Norma Shearer (Jessie Cohen). And of course there's Orson himself, very much just a walk-on but perfectly embodied by Tom Burke (actually I though he should have been taller but, otherwise, perfect). This is a film that will merit many many repeat viewings to spot all the subtleties.

Tom Burke / Orson Welles

Gary Oldman strolls through everything with drunken aplomb. His Mankiewicz gets to be a continual witticism machine, every utterance a gem of observation, insight or sarcasm, often all three. And he's really good, as good as I've seen him. There are beautiful subtle moments of stillness to balance the grandstanding; Oscar nomination no doubt on its way, and well-deserved too. 

For all that, perhaps the ultimate criticism is that you never really get inside, never get to know Mank. He remains as much of an enigma at the end as at the beginning. But perhaps that's fitting. That was a criticism people made about Citizen Kane but it seemed to be missing the point: Citizen Kane deliberately questioned how well you could really know anyone from snippets of their life. Mank doesn't do that as explicitly but the underlying principle remains.