Eating Some Food in Wellington, a review: The Southern Cross

Part one of a (proposed) infrequent series about Eating Food in Wellington.


In Part One, I visit the Southern Cross, and eat quite a lot of meat.

Cadged directly from the Southern Cross dining page. I like the seats quite a lot.

On Tuesday night Shannon and I had a hott date night: but also, a hott date night that was super cheap because I had been given $40 worth of "Southern Cross Dollars" through Derby. I'd never eaten a proper meal at the Cross before because it's mostly a pub, the food always seems crazy expensive for pub food, and whenever I was there I was more intent in having a derby meeting or drinking as much beer as possible than on eating. ANYWAYS, we went, and it turns out that Tuesday night is two-for-one hot stone grill night! I had no idea that such an amazingly awesome and simultaneously bogan thing existed in this world. Also, isn't it bizarre the way that it's MORE expensive to cook your own meal on a ridiculously hot paving stone in a purpose made serving dish than it is to get a qualified chef to cook it? A deep reflection, I know.

We had Devils on Horseback as an entree (pre-dinner nibble) which was accompanied with a huge jug of Emerson's Bookbinder beer. The Devils on Horseback tasted like Devils on Horseback, which are (for the uninitiated), prunes wrapped in bacon, and are retro as all hell but well due for a major revival. The Emersons Bookbinder tasted like Emersons Bookbinder and there was quite a lot of it. Too much, in hindsight but HEY HO! All good in the 'hood (she slurs, as she slides down the Formica table).

The entree was cleared away very quickly (good if we're going to the theatre, bad on a date night) and we were presented with our hot stone grill mains: Shannon had a 400gm Surf and Turf (classy!) and I had a 400gm steak and envied his prawns. I only burnt myself on the paver once so I was quite pleased with that. We both had salad and I had chips and aioli with the steak, which were - boring. But! Even if I didn't think much of the accompaniments (blah caramelised onion blah) the meat was really, freaking good and we were both very happy with our enormous meat portions (*snicker*). Fun fact: hot stone grill makes your clothes smell like meat.

The waiter was a bit vague in a snooty kind of way but warmed up throughout the evening; I confess I felt very sorry for anyone having to work in the humidity and heat of Tuesday and I totally empathised with her vagueness. At the end of the meal we presented the vouchers which caused some consternation because we were getting a free meal (two-for-one) and paying with free money ("Southern Cross Dollars") and we were mildly told off by some guy higher up on the ladder than our waiter, who figured that they were paying for the same meal four times? However, when I offered to pay for both meals they refused my money, which was both passive aggressive and kind of nice, and meant that I paid something like $25 for a meal worth three times as much.

In conclusion: you could probably have an OK time at the Cross; a much better time if you drink lots and really want to experience the weirdness of hot-stone grill food. I probably wouldn't strongly recommend that you go, except maybe if your parents were in town from New Plymouth or Tauranga and didn't want to go somewhere too threatening. The staff we had didn't appear to really give a fuck, but I've been served by completely fine people there in the past so I don't want to tar them all with the same brush.