Mexico

Not Mexico the country (I wish), but Mexico the restaurant.

But hey, it's as close to Mexico as you can get living in the middle of Auckland, and I'm not about to complain. In fact, I'm going to do just the opposite and tell you how great this restaurant is.

Mexico opened it's first store in Britomart a few years ago, and started off with a roaring trade. I ate there regularly, and watched in wonder to see if like many new restaurants, people would get sick of it as soon as the next best thing came along. But no, the customers remained, the restaurant only got better, and then franchised out to became one of Auckland's favourite eateries.

I had been meaning to check out Mexico's newest addition for a while, so, after being away for a long weekend with the girls, I thought I'd drag James along to Mexico Ponsonby for dinner, where we sat outside under colourful blankets, and ate our way through the delicious menu.

I started off with my favourite of their cocktails- the black plum margarita, while James went with a good ol' Corona. The margaritas are to die for, but if you don't fancy alcohol then the Jarritos are pretty damn good too, and a great alternative.

The food at Mexico is designed to be shared, so what I usually do is chose a taco each and a whole lot of other dishes for the table. After a small argument about the merits of coriander (come on who doesn't like coriander!) we went with chickpea patatas, octopus and chorzo pinchos, and Mexico's famous fried chicken to share, along with the fish taco for James, and the blackened duck taco for myself.

The fried chicken was, and always is delicious, and won dish of the night, followed in a close second by my delicious blackened duck taco.

Apart from the fried chicken, one of my favourite things about Mexico is that the menu changes fairly frequently, meaning you can go back time and time again trying new concoctions, creations and flavours that never disappoint (not that I need an excuse to go!).

Whether you go to Mexico in Hamilton, Takapuna, Ponsonby, Ellerslie, Britomart, or wherever they open up next, the food is always fantastic, it's good value, and is definitely worth a visit.

An Early Summer + Ceviche

When the sun makes an appearance on those rare October summer days, you know you're in for a treat (and usually some sunburn).

Wanting to make the most of it, the girls and I decided at the last minute to head out to Tauwharanui Peninsula for the day. So, with a picnic packed, and with our towels and books in tow, we made our way up North to the beautiful beach.

After a gorgeous day of sunbathing, swimming, reading, and being attacked by seagulls, we were absolutely shattered. The sun had beaten us. It was time to head home for a drink, but more importantly something to eat.

Keeping on theme with our beach day, we decided to have seafood for dinner, so first stop on the way home was the Matakana Coast Oyster Company where we grabbed two dozen oysters to take home (this is The Oyster Weekend after all).

Second stop was Farro, where we picked up the ingredients for one of my all time favourite dishes, ceviche. Ceviche is a raw fish salad, WAIT- before you turn you nose up at this let me tell you; the lime in the salad acts as an agent that kind of cooks the fish, making this raw fish salad not very raw at all, but incredibly, amazingly delicious.

Ceviche (serves 4)

• 400-500 grams fish fillets. Ask your fishmonger what fish would be best suited to a raw salad (I usually use Tarakihi), and ensure the fish is very fresh.
• Juice of 3 limes
• 1 green capsicum, diced
• 1/4 red onion, diced
• 2 fresh chillis, diced
• 1 avocado, cut into cubes
• 1/3 cup coconut milk
• handful of coriander, roughly chopped

Slice the fish into small slivers or cubes, and stir through with lime juice. Leave this mixture in the fridge for 5 minutes or so while you chop up the rest of your ingredients.

By the time you've chopped everything else up, your fish should be looking slightly opaque, that's the lime doing it's thing!

The next bit is easy, throw all of the remaining ingredients into the bowl, stir through, have a taste test, and when you're happy with it, put it back in the fridge until you're ready to serve (it is best chilled). 

Once we had showered off the sand and the salt, and the ceviche and oysters were safely in the fridge, Alice whipped us all up some cocktails with gin, soda, sugar syrup, lime and mint, to go with our seafood feast. She may not like cooking, but she makes a good drink! 

With the cocktails in hand, we popped a bag of corn chips (the best way to eat ceviche), and started tucking into our seafood feast. The perfect way to end a beautiful pre-summer's day.

Britomart Country Club

I'm writing this at the end of the weekend, warm from a few days in the sun, and very happy after a lot of good eating and drinking.

The whole weekend would be one very long blog post, so I'll take you through Saturday afternoon when James and I decided to head down to Britomart. Apart from the odd Saturday night where my camera is best left at home, I hadn't had a proper look around Britomart in a long time, and was pretty amazed at the change it has undergone. Bursting with some awesome shops like Karen Walker, Black Box, Lululemon, Kate Sylvester, and Nike to name a few, Britomart is very cool, and very dangerous territory straight after pay day...

After a mosey around the shops and a rest in the sun, a cold drink was calling (screaming) our names. There are a whole lot of amazing bars down there, but my watering hole of choice is Britomart Country Club, known to most of us as BCC. The bar is covered, but has a great indoor-outdoor feel, and is the perfect place to whittle away a summer afternoon. You can even have a game of minigolf or petanque while you sip on your cocktail.

In the name of summer, I chose cocktails while James stuck it out with beer. I managed to make my way through a fair chunk of the menu (hey, we were there for at least a few hours), and in the end my favourite was the Victorian Mojito: an amazingly refreshing mixture of Bombay Sapphire, lime, apple juice, soda and mint. The best mojito I've ever had, no bull.

After a few more cocktails it was time to eat, and we chose our dishes from the tapas menu. The dishes were small, but well priced, and all very tasty. We had the rich and creamy Spanish croquettes, sticky BBQ spare ribs, and my favourite: the crispy fried chicken.

With full bellies, and a bit of a fuzzy head, it was time to catch the last of the afternoon sun and head home.

Britomart, you have re-captured my heart, and I will be back for more sun and more cocktails very, very soon.