Queenstown eateries part II

Lunch at Amisfield winery and bistro

 Did my Queesntown eateries part 1 look good? Well take a look at this post!

We had one of the best lunches at Amisfield winery and bistro. The setting is beautiful, and the food is pretty darn great too!

Top left: Coudy bay clams with linguini. Top right: Potato gnocchi with basil pesto. Bottom left: Lamb sausages, saffron couscous and tzatziki. Bottom right: Butterfish

I had the potato gnocchi with basil pesto, which I really liked. I normally don't like gnocchi as a main dish, since I find it usually too rich, especially when there is a huge quantity. But this was just nice, and I loved the basil pesto, along with the other vegetables as well. My eldest sister had the linguini, my other sister had the lamb sausage, and that was alright, not my favourite. My parents both had the butterfish and thought that it was well cooked and delicious. The food had perfect portions, not too much to make us feel bloated afterwards.

During our trip, my dad and my sisters really loved the wine there. Especially the Pinot noir. The Otago region is in the South island, and they have perfect conditions for wine. I can't say much about wine, since I am under-aged and haven't had a sip before. But my sisters and dad really enjoyed the wine there, pretty much always getting a whole bottle every meal! They say that the Pinot noirs there are so 'smooth'.

Dinner at Pier 19

A good dinner around the bay, would have to be at Pier 19. My family and I actually came here twice! We loved the crayfish so much the first time, we wanted to have it one last night we were in Queenstown.

We all had seafood chowder, which was quite nice. During out trip in NZ, we surprisingly drank a lot of good seafood chowders. There's a familiar taste with San Francisco's Boudin bakery clam chowder, but it will never be as good as that! I would go back to San Fran, just for clam chowder.

When we first came, we didn't feel like eating too much. So we called a seafood platter for two (but shared it around) and two of the crayfish. The seafood platter has salad, calamari rings, prawns, salmon dip, mussels, clams and also crayfish. Quite an interesting different variety of seafood. My favourite from that platter (besides the crayfish) was the calamari rings.

The crayfish was sensational. I'm not exaggerating. It is grilled to perfection, and has all these juices inside with the right amount of seasoning. After the meal, Yii-May was saying "I want my own crayfish the next time!"

So, the second time we came, the five of us all got one seafood chowder AND our own crayfish plate :) But instead of the fries, some of us decided to get roasted potatoes and some decided on potato gratin. We were sick of fries. My roasted potatoes were a bit ordinary, and I wished I ordered the potato gratin instead.  I kept helping myself with a spoon to my mum's potato gratin. Potato gratin is like a cheesy potato lasagne to me!

We also had a chocolate fudge cake with cherries for dessert. When it came out, I thought it looked a bit dry, but the chocolate cake melted in my mouth, quite delicious.

Dinner at the Skyline gondola

These are the pinetrees I'm talking about.

We ate at the Skyline gondola buffet for dinner. My family actually didn't really go to the Skyline gondola for the 'food', but more for the view.

However, they were actually pleasantly surprised about the food. They thought it was going to be a bit mediocre buffet food, since a lot of buffets are more about the quantity than quality. We liked a few things here! And my tummy was in pain afterwards.

My average plate (wait x 2) of dinner at a buffet.

They had quite a few desserts, but one dessert in particular stood out to me.

The sticky date muffin with butterscotch sauce and hokey pokey ice cream. I would've been happy just to have two plates of that, nothing else from the dessert bar. The muffin was so moist and had these crackly, sticky tops. The butterscotch sauce: oh my word. And the hokey pokey ice cream is a must. Hokey pokey is a New Zealand ice cream flavour with bits of honeycomb toffee. I have to get my hands on these, I hope I can find an ice cream like that. So, when you put all of the three elements together, it's so dreamy.

My sister comparing her hand to the burger.

Although those restaurants had really good food, I just had to fit in to write about a miss. We ate some burgers at Fergburger, and we were left disappointed. I had read many great reviews about it on the net, and was eager to try it. Around lunchtime, the cues extend to outside. I shared the chicken burger with my eldest sister, and my second sister had the original fergburger. While it was a 'nice' burger, I don't really have anything else to say other than that. The filling wasn't a lot, the bun was ordinary and overall, not the best. I don't really understand why people cue up for this. Also not worth the money. My sisters and I all agree that AMERICAN BURGERS ARE THE BEST!