CARAVAN KINGS X

The Sweet Vibe Called Love At Caravan

Building Camp Ground For The Caravans

Central St Martins Arty Hang Out

Industrial Chic

Marshaling The Troops

Adjusting The Sunset

Getting Comfy

It's a date...

Yes Please...

The Typography Sure Read's Well...

Freshly Baked Bread, Oilve Oil, Dukkah

Grits, Collard Greens, Bourbon Brown Shrimp Butter
+
Crispy Fried Chicken, Jerk Mayo, Green Paw Paw Salsa

Make Your Own Pizza Mash Up

Chocolat Chilli Fondant, Blood Orange Ice Cream

A Dinner Date For 2

#42  Winnie The Pooh

Every Woman, Every Man...

A r e  y o u   r e a d y  ...?   A r e   y o u   r e a d y  ...?

Are you ready for the time of your life ?

Time to stand up and dine.

Then Join the Caravan of Love.

To the marvel land at King X.

I'm your brother,    I'm your brother don't you know.

She's my sister. She's my sister don't you know.

With the aroma of a 12 kilo coffee roaster, installed by owners Miles Kirby and Chris Ammermann to provide setting for an upbeat, relaxed, stylish vibe of their native Aotearoa.

Yes ok.

There's a better place for us to be.

Caravan KingsX in the limelight as the best overall food, ambience, value for money experience your 'TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY' blogger has sampled this year in London...

Bar none.

Every Woman, Every Man

Mr Heaton, It's more than Alright...

Caravan Kings X.  A Favourite Places To Eat.  Award Winner.

The French Spring A Leak

2 courses for £12. Oh La La...

The Imaginary Cage

Pretty Romantic Bone China eh ?

Rose Wine + Red Mesh Bow On Real Red Rose

Painting the Scene: Gold Frame, Gold Dimmer Switch

Laying It On Thick With A Red Rose

Squid Rings.

Imagine This Is French Onion Soup

Batchelors Packet Noodles Anyone ?

Strawberry Cheesecake Served On A Scallop

Tiny Crumbs Of Comfort

How An Artist Imagines The Cage

#41  Time for Fun

Ooh La La.

Some restaurants become your favourites because the food is par excellence... or because the ambience is cosy, and relaxing or the location homely and handy or because the other patrons who go there are friendly and stimulating to be around. 

Sometimes they become your favourites because you felt it a risky business going in...and ended up spending a lot of time laughing and giggling at your table. We have a phrase that refers to that as banking tummy dollars. We banked lots of dollars at La Cage Imaginaire.

This was so cliched romantic in the wrong way that it kind of worked in the right way. The food was a surprise too. We ordered fresh wild Salmon on a bed of spaghetti and recognised the kinks found in Batchelors packet noodles. The French Onion Soup, a classic staple of any french restaurant resembled brown water with two bread flotillas that were stopping the dried onion from drowning. We ordered a homemade strawberry cheesecake and suspected the homemade bit was removing the wrapping in the kitchen. And we should add, even though we ordered it for one to share, it was very kindly cut into two pieces and served on two separate shiny black Scallop shaped plates with real stawberries diced alongside.

To conclude even the most staunch Francophile might be bemused not to find an authentic frenchman in this Romantic restaurant. Our waiter was Ukranian and the kitchen was being replenished by a little Chinese delivery man running in off the street. We let our imagination run wild that the chef had a french auntie.

Now sadly I don't parlais Francais and I am going to have to take a wild guess that 'La Cage Imaginaire' means the Imaginary Cage... or well at least that's how I like to think it means. A cage that on the one hand traps you and doesn't let you leave and on the other lets your imagination run wild... It's a dangerous combination.

We kind of thought this might be a place that Gordon Ramsay's TV producer would like to get their hands on. 

But no thanks Gordon, no make overs here please we love it just as it is...

LA COLLINA

Inside Outside

Free Olives, Tiny Mini Pizzas.

Spaghetti alle Vongole. Clam Pasta.

Footsie Under The Table x

The Aperitif Wine

And The Vines

Gratin scallops, bread crumbs, sun-dried tomato, garlic, lemon wedge

Whirr Whirr, Twirl.

Chicory Salad with Walnuts and Parmigiano

Homemade Wild Mushroom, Black Truffle Ravioli topped with Crayfish tails

Al Fresco Subterranean Garden

Tiramisu to Share

#40 Naughty Forty

Running Up The Hill 

Recently I have taken to running up the hill. I dont think its the hill which Kate Bush referred to, as I havent been trying to make any deals with god. Just trying to enjoy the green lung capacity of a metropolitan city. The hill being Primrose Hill.

'The Hill' when translated in Italian is 'La Collina' and the aptly named La Collina is a fantastic, discreet, modern Italian restaurant with a homemade feel located near the bottom southern end of Primrose Hill.

The restaurant is essentially a warm home from home, which is enhanced by the proprietor's clever choice of acquiring a residential georgian town house. It's ambience feels like just another neighbour going about its business. One neighbour is The Albert Pub which is a lovely place to have a pre dinner drink.

Spike Milligan would have loved it here at La Collina. Spike felt that piped music made a nice place into a noisy nice place. La Collina achieves a perfectly attractive quiet, where only the happy contented chatter of fellow diners fills the white walled rooms and leafy exterior garden space. 

La Collina knows a thing or two about their wine and their homemade pasta and it is not a huge surprise it has become one of our Favourite Places To Eat over the last 3 years. Only once have we witnessed a menu mix up and on that occasion our fellow Japanese diners were offered the whole plate as a free appetiser, while the intended choice was prepared again exactly from scratch. It is this sort of genuine hospitable service that makes a good restaurant into a memorable one that you go back to.

The menu is always great and never disappoints as sometimes generic modern Italian food can do. On occasion some Italians have acquired the distinct reputation of over selling their wares. Here the reputation is effortlessly engineered by the quality of their ingredients and recipes. La Collina's Homemade Wild Mushroom Ravioli or Gratin Scallops served in their shells are a prime example of a whole kind of fresh and delicious.

The only evident problem with La Collina is it's the sort of place you want to keep a secret and not to blog about. 

It was a tough decision and if we unable to get a table next time we will probably know why.

NGAPUTAHI RIVER CAFE

Lookout Point - Pohangina Valley

Poplar Trees Planted By Grand Jack

Mum's Tiny School in 1946

Crystal Clear Waters - The Pohangina River

Pohangina River Painting By Jean Mintoft, Artist In Wales

Up Stream

Down Stream

Observing Bush Bird Life

Setting Up Base Camp

The Ngaputahi River Bank Fry Up

Tall Totara Trees

Sunshine Egg

Farm Sausage Sunbathing On Bread Lino

Andrea's Kiwiana Snacks

Matilde the Lamb

Garage Ping Pong - Invitation Cup 2012

#39 Those Famous Steps

The River Bank Fry Up

To conclude this mini-series of posts on NZ Coffee Culture lets venture off-piste for another slice of essential kiwiana kit. The NZ River Bank Fry Up.

This fry up travels downstream along the river banks of the beautiful Pohangina valley at a farm station called Ngaputahi, its maori name meaning 'where the two rivers meet'.

This soulful place holds special resonance to me as the much loved childhood home of my mother and my grandparents working farm. It is also poignant as the setting that provides my earliest childhood memory when first visiting this beautiful land at the age of four, having travelled 11,564 miles from our home in Ty Gwyn, Wales.

Right on the doorstep of Ngaputahi is the idyllic Totara Reserve Regional Park a 340ha bush and camp grounds, with magnificently tall native Totara trees along with Matai, Rimu, Kahikatea and Black Beech, claiming their rites of passage as an ancient forest. Following a whirlwind romance, it was here in the Totara Reserve Community Hall, where my parents held their wedding reception mid swing during the 60's.

The Pohangina river flows southwards along the lower central stretch of the North Island and is crystal clear in parts, collecting fresh mountain water from the Ruahine Forest Ranges and flowing all the way down to Ashurst where it joins the Manawatu river.  I recall Mum's fond stories of swimming with her younger brothers and sisters in this river during the long warm summers. It offers the sort of idyllic tranquility and immersion with nature that inspires British artists like Jean Mintoft to circumnavigate the world and start painting.

The Pohangina Valley is also the home to the wonderful Kereru Company who produce the most Natural of Products for body care and essential oils. Our personal favourite is the Calendula and Manuka Honey Skin Cream.

We were lucky to have amongst our ranks an expert tour guide: Mum's youngest brother Nigel who spotted the sign he had hand crafted 50 years ago, still in situ and directing the local sheep traffic. After setting up base camp Nigel set about preparing the Ngaputahi River Bank Fry Up, which is renowned in these remote parts. Not surprisingly this fry up ceremony attracted some intrepid Japanese tourists who pretended they were observing the natural wildlife around the river. There is plenty here with Tui, Native Pigeon, Fantail and Kingfisher all hanging out their tail feathers.

Our tour guide passed on great river-bank-fry-up wisdom. "These are the simple things we all need to find time to do. Enjoying life's good stuff." And while we paused for reflection, Nigel prepared a shearers feast with farm fresh bacon and eggs, sausage, bread with knob of NZ butter and artfully seasoned with a generous splodge of tomato ketchup.

We washed it down with a fine cup of diaspora tea, complete with bag in cup,  hot water from a whistler kettle and a new world teaspoon, a super functional tool.

With a plan to see the amazing Te Apiti Wind Farm on top of Manawatu hills, followed by Nigel's philanthropic ritual to shout visitors a hokey pokey tip-top ice cream from the Ashurst diary, it was time to leave this river bank bliss. All good New Zealanders know the rules of nature are to Leave Without A Trace and only take away the memories.

We rounded off our river-bank jaunt with Andrea's kiwiana snacks, french lamb bonding and garage ping-pong. Only available in NZ.

Tika Hoki Aotearoa !