Accustomed to the European way of celebrating the evenings, when planning our New Zealand trip we did not take into account that restaurant kitchens close early down under. If you do not have your table and order around seven or half eight pm at the latest, you better hurry to a supermarket (still open at that hour) and be ready to make use of your hotel (motel) kitchen. The latter would not be a problem, as most of the hotels in New Zealand are lodge hotels where a living room is equipped with a kitchen. In the aftermath, during our two weeks trip, only five or six times we managed to eat correctly for supper outdoors.

My favorite one was not about a local specialty really – a good beef steak you may enjoy in many places. Still, on our last evening in New Zealand, we found ourselves in a real New Zealand steak house in Christchurch enjoying local beef and baked potatoes, sipping red wine and listening to live country and rock music.

As we entered the restaurant at around seven pm on a Friday evening, it was already full. And … around ten we were almost the last to go. Only the bar was still open.

It was a delicious evening in the New Zealand way.