Lunch at Chow

A workmate is getting married today and to celebrate we had a workday lunch at Chow on Tory Street earlier in the week.

We chose to dine from a $25 lunch menu, which included miso soup, a salad (either chicken or pumpkin), a main dish from a selection of 7 or 8, and a drink (house wine, beer or a strombolano).

I did suffer quite a bit of mocking from my workmates for whipping the camera out, so please forgive this blurry pic - I was simultaneously trying to defend my geeky blogging habit so wasn't concentrating on the camera! The miso was fine - not too exciting, but nice to start with.

For my salad option I chose the pumpkin one and it was amazing! The greens were delicious - lots of flavour in the greens, plus a lovely dressing and the pumpkin was roasted and tossed through it, as were pumpkin seeds. It was really, really good. I heard similarly appreciative noises coming from colleagues who'd chosen the chicken salad, but I can't see how boring old chicken could have beaten the pumpkin. ;-)

My main dish (though they were served together anyway) was the green jungle curry. It doesn't look that fantastic but it was pretty yummy - again I had chosen a vegetable option. I'm not a huge fan of beans in most cases, and I felt that in this case they didn't add anything - I would have preferred it without them. But all the other vegies were lovely - and the green curry went beautifully. It was quite mild, but deliciously creamy and perfectly complemented the roasted veg. I have to admit the salad won slightly over this - and because I really liked the salad I had scoffed the lot before starting on this so didn't quite get through it all. Mr Cake thanked me though; he got the leftovers for his dinner. ;-)

To drink I had the Strombolano, which is a fruit cocktail (mocktail, I guess, since it's non-alcoholic). It contained pineapple, orange, cranberry and lemon juice and was garnished with orange, mint and an artificial cherry... And it was delicious. I would love another of those right about now.

So all in all, a great meal (and great value, at $25 for the lot). Will definitely have to visit Chow again - their bar snacks look amazing, too, and they have a pretty extensive cocktail menu - if the cocktails are as good as the Strombolano they can't go wrong!



Chow restaurant is at 45 Tory Street, Wellington, ph. 04 382 8585, www.chow.co.nz