Portofino at the Viaduct

Last night was a 'I don't feel like cooking, and not only that, I don't feel like deciding what I'd like you to cook' night. And after being most impressed with the buzz in Courtney Place at 11pm on Saturday while I was in Wellington, we decided that our closest environment to that in Auckland would have to be the viaduct.

So we wandered down and settled on Portofino for dinner.

Impressions....
Decor and Environment - pretty cool, bathrooms snazzy (despite inappropriate affordances on the door handle - will designers never learn?); nice and warm despite being a freezing evening and us sitting out on the deck.
Service - very European. :) Adequately attentive, but by no means worthy of note, positive or negative. Hmm, although now that I think of it, we never did receive water.
Food - very 'sitting in a touristy coastal area of Italy'. The food was very reminiscent of meals we had in Italy - so yes it was authentic, but equally, it was basic. It was good, hearty, trattoria style Italian food.
What we ate

• SG - seafood risotto - personally I think I do a better risotto. I avoided the risottos and most of the pastas as they all had cream in them.
  
• JG - white veal picante - I enjoyed this, (although the potatoes were burnt on one side), nice Capsicum and tomato sauce with black olives. Veges were lovely.

What we drank

• SG - partook of my favourite beer - Nastro Azzuro - which, as always was divine.
  
• JG- a Pinot Grigio from the Roma region. A little thin, strong pear on the palette, taste developed with increased temperature and with food.

Price - as expected for the Viaduct - overpriced. :) Especially given above comments about the food.
Overall - fairly indifferent - although the people-watching opportunities really are fabulous at the Viaduct. :) I'd go back, but I wouldn't make a point of going back.

And that brings me to tonight. Argh! Its 6:55 and I'm still at work. :( And I really want to let the cats out tonight, so its going to have to be a home meal, but its another one of the those moods I fear! Ah well. You'll see soon enough......

Inception

The prime catalyst for this blog and our newly created website, was a delicious meal, a relaxing evening and a glass of chardonnay - guaranteed to be ingredients for anything good. :)

So, in honour of that most pleasant of evenings - the meal that sparked this off:

Yum! So while feasting up on couscous tabouleh, eye fillet and fresh asparagus, the name 'Sin 'n' Joy' was born. Happy Inception Day Sin n Joy.

Is beginning to blog like learning to appreciate wine?

Having never blogged before, I was sitting staring at the screen thinking what I should write. I have a vague recollection of writing in a diary a couple of times many years ago when I did some travelling (at the insistence of my mother), but don't think I've written down anything that even resembled a diary since then. And now there seems to be a mad craze for people to publish their thoughts and share content publicly.

The read/write web concept embodied in Web 2.0 is quite a different paradigm to how people have traditionally shared information. With Web-based communities such as Blogs, Wikis and Photo/Video sharing sites becoming mainstream, collaborative content sharing communities have come to life.

Like learning to appreciate the characteristics embodied in a glass of wine takes a lot of "practice", I think my blogging endeavours and getting my head better into the Web-based communities mindset may too require some practice (maybe with a glass of the aforementioned wine in hand).