THE LUCK OF THE IRISH

One of our favourite Wellington publicans is due to become a dad. Dermot Murphy is as Irish as you can get and we were well entertained by his Irish lilt today at lunch. Now he is quite excited by the prospect of becoming a father. However he is even more excited by the prospect that his baby is due to be born on St Patricks Day.

Dermot is the owner of D4, the Establishment and Chicago. And it seems that Chicago is one of the waterfront venues which we be a " place to be" come the Rugby World Cup.

Dermot is young, works hard and knows the hospitality trade well. He is the type of young entrepreneur we need more of in NZ.

Interestingly we were talking to another Restaurateur today who is a little sceptical of the increase in trade that the Rugby World Cup is expected to bring.

While the Wellington waterfront bars did a roaring trade on the back of the Rugby Sevens the top end bars did not fair so well. Seems pies and chips are the order of the day for the young rugby crowd. So there is some concern that the RWC spin off may largely be limited to some big bars.

We hope that is not the case and there is a vast difference between the Rugby sevens - youngish crowd and the Rugby Union fans. We remember the Lions tour and there was a huge range of people from those who toured the country in Helicopters to the Welsh village postie we met who saved five years to visit NZ and was pretty much limiting his eating and drinking spend to $50 a day.

So we are hopeful that there will be enough fans who like fine dining to keep the Wellington restaurants rocking during the tournament.

Bring it on.

BEST OF 2009

2009 has been a mixed bag.

We have new mates and we lost some good mates

We stopped blogging for a while then we started back up again .

We have a new job.

The son and heir is passing his helicopter exams and Ma and Pa have been hitched for 50 years.

So who is the best of the best for 2009.

Okay we think that the speaker deserved the best slot for his transformation of the running of the House. No argument there.

Best Minister? Probably Gerry Brownlie. He has made some ballsy calls on the energy front. His decisions have the potential to change the economic face of NZ. We are not sure that ordinary NZers have yet grasped the potential.

Judith Collins has to come a close second. She has police in her steely grip and we are the better for it.

Best Journalist? We reckon there are a few who for different reasons have done a bloody good job this year. Fran O'Sullivan, Ian Templeton, Rob Hosking are all up there .

Then who is the best columnists? Well its Hooton for starters. His columns are must reads and incite the mandarins and spinners alike. And he just gets it right.

Best blogger? Cactus on business is hard to beat. Bernard Hickey is pretty good and Kiwiblog on policy and oogling.. No- one does online girly oogling like D P Farrar.

Whale has to be noted for his fearlessness. He has a touch of the crazies but he is the Rottweiler of the right wing blogs and Gotcha is starting to do some good work ...

We have to pay tribute to Brent Wheeler who had made us think so hard about some economic issues that it makes our brain hurt.

Best paper? NZ Herald is our first read of the day. NBR is next and we dip into it quite a lot and Stuff is good but it seems to have lost the race against the Herald. And we always read TransTasman.

Best Labour politician? Well that's gotta be - we actually no one has really stood out. Grant Robertson is probably the exception. Most of the female Labour politicians are old school, social manipulators not empowerers.

Best Maori politician? Tariana Turia. First and last. However we think that Ururoa Flavell is starting to get some cred.

ACT- Well the jury is out on that for us.

To more urbane issues.

The Best coffee in Wellington is served at Mixed business on the Terrace.

The best wine bar is still Beaujolais and it still serves some of the finest lunch food around.

Best Restaurant is Zicos, followed by Arbitrageur who are happy to accommodate our rolling lunches with a continuously changing cast.

Best venue is Dockside but the food aint what it used to be.

Best new place - Ortegas fish shack and bar.

Best urban bar - D4.

Best wine list - Wine Loft.

Best Beer - Montieths Pilsener.

THE POWER OF BLOGS

Well they apparently do work as marketing tools.

The Little sis of BB - the pod princess known as Lambcut organised a wee soiree for the Rural Women of NZ -with guest speaker Fran O'Sullivan and her take on blogs.

It was expected to be a small function - its grown a bit - so much so the venue has now changed - to one of our favourite bars - D4...

The power of new media - its seems.

You are invited to the next breakfast meeting of the RWNZ Wellington Network Group, to be held on Tuesday 29 September. Please feel free to pass this message onto your staff and colleagues.

Speaker: Fran O’Sullivan

Topic: An Accidental Empire: The Rise of Political Blogging and its Effect on Conventional Media.

RWNZ is delighted to have special guest Fran O’Sullivan - a columnist for the New Zealand Herald - speaking at this month’s breakfast meeting on the rise of political blogging. Fran's expertise is in politics and business. She was labelled a "right-wing blogger" by Helen Clark - but has yet to launch her own blog.

Time: 7.15am – 8.15 a.m.

Venue: D4 on Featherston Street

Level 1, 143 Featherston St,

PO Box 5815,

Central Wellington

Breakfast: There is no charge for attending RWNZ breakfast meetings. A D4 Breakfast Special costing $12 has been arranged for this occasion. The Special includes bacon, a choice of eggs on toast, and tea or coffee and juice. Or, you can order a continental breakfast with jam and marmalade served with juice, tea or coffee for $12. If you have a little more time, you may wish to order from any of the full range of dishes available on D4’s superb breakfast menu which can be viewed at www.d4.co.nz/menu

Please RSVP to Noeline Holt: noeline.holt@ruralwomen.org.nz

or

Tracy Galland: tracygalland@xtra.co.nz

KOI CLASS ACT

Wellington's newest restaurant Koi has opened quietly in the lovely space once occupied by Copita. It is part of the growing Dermot Murphy empire.

Anyway we dined there with the mustachioed (he not a she) big brown fella prawn for lunch.

He had been there before and was well versed with the menu.

For lunch you start with a range of stunning nibbly bits - We had the squid - which was the softest squid we have had in ages and then had beef tongue which was a bit chewy but tasty and chicken livers - again yum. We then tried some of the octopus sashimi - delicate and juicy!

The big brown fella had the lunch plate with mackerel. It is a lovely plate of fillets and a number of Japanese inspired condiments. You can have a vegetarian, 0r meat option. It looked yum but we opted for more squid. We had a lovely Yealands Sauvignon Blanc which was light and elegant.

We finished the meal off with a cheese board.Served simply with muscatels and figs.

We think that Dermot is on to a winner with Koi. The surroundings are lovely - warm white with touches of eastern decadence. And he has retained the lovely comfy chairs from Copita.
Koi is a little different and there are quiet elements of kiwi fusion layering the offerings. We understand that they have had a Japanese consultant in to assist with the menu.

The other feature of Dermot's foody fiefdom is the staff. They are always attentive, knowledgeable and efficient.

Anyway a mate and client was at the next table and he picked up our tab. You cant get better than that!