City Market

Wellington has a fantastically vibrant city centre, and my favourite part of living here is that by living in a central city apartment were are within easy walking distance of pretty much everything we could want. A prime example is City Market, which is a short five minute walk from our door, and is held indoors (definitely a bonus at this time of year!) every Sunday from 8.30am to 12.30pm. It's a bit shameful how infrequently we go, given how close we live - but then, if I went every week I would probably bankrupt us before too long so perhaps it's just as well! ;-)

The Loukoumi Turkish Delight stall is always there, and the stallholders always look so friendly and welcoming. They have a dazzling array of flavours (pomegranate, anyone?) and samples so you can test first if you're uncertain. These make great gifts (or work equally well to take home and treat yourself with... Either way!).

Esque chocolates make these gorgeous tablets of chocolate - the chocolate is nice and the berries and nuts studded across the block make it flavoursome as well as pretty. They also have awesome packaging:

Each tablet has a little blurb, making them quirky as well as lovely to look at - the perfect gift for a chocaholic.

Le Marche Francais attend the market weekly with a wondrous range of French cheeses. I love cheese, especially good, stinky goats cheese, so this is right up my alley. I managed to hold myself back this week but I think just about every other time we've visited the market we've gotten something from these guys.

The Harrington's folk are always there with their tasty sausages etc., but this week (I think due to it being 'sausage week' or somesuch?) they were barbecuing up small sausages and giving them out to taste. We tried them and they were very tasty - full of flavour but pleasingly lacking in the greasy mouthfeel of many a sausage. They're also gluten free, which many sausages aren't.

Right next to the Harrington's stall was the Farmhouse Kitchen. She overheard us talking about the gluten free sausages and pointed out that her muesli is also GF. It looks incredible, packed full of macadamias and she has little samples - it tastes fantastic! I'm not a big muesli fan but this stuff is goooooooooooood.

Martin Bosley, who co-founded the market as well as running one of Wellington's best restaurants, always has a stall in one corner with a varying range of foodie products. Today he has some tasty spice mixes (among other things) and we are convinced enough to buy a vadouvan spice mix - tasty as dukkah but I can very much imagine it, as Martin suggests, sprinkled on roast potatoes or chicken.

Cupcake Sweeties is well stocked with adorable cupcakes - mini cupcakes can be bought nestled in an egg carton - as well as decorating supplies like cupcake papers and edible glitter. I was tempted but have spent far too much on such things already this year. ;-)

The Schott stand stocks the delicious cordials/syrups which are becoming ubiquitous in cafes across the country. I tried the passionfruit one and found it delicious, and will be back to buy some very soon as I can see this could be used to my advantage in baking as well as a refreshing beverage (but Mr Cake had taken almost all my money by this point!).

Last stop on this whirlwind tour was the French Baker, who is always surrounded by buttery, amazing-looking pastry. I wanted to try a conversation, having read Not Quite Nigella's Greytown post a couple of weeks ago, where she raves about this particular pastry. I can never go past their palmiers (sorry, waistline!) and Mr Cake wanted a brioche, though I inadvertantly requested the plum one instead of the brown sugar one he'd been eyeing up (sorry Mr Cake!). That used up the last few bits of shrapnel I could gather from my purse and Mr Cake's pocket, so we toddled off home to scoff our pastries:

The conversation was pretty nice, though the never-fail palmier won my heart (again). The brioche didn't excite me that much but was more Mr Cake's cup of tea (though I may have to go back and get a brown sugar one, to remedy his disappointment - but always good to have a couple of excuses up my sleeve for the next time!).

Millie over at Gusty Gourmet posted a few weeks back about the market as well, and her photos are ten times better than mine (plus she spent longer there and the stalls vary from week to week, so she has some different products to show), so if you're interested to read more see her posts, here and here. And if you're in Wellington and haven't been to the City Market, put it at the top of your to-do list for Sunday morning!





City Market is located at Chaffers Dock Atrium, 1 Herd Street, Wellington, every Sunday from 8.30am-12.30pm, www.citymarket.co.nz