Strawberry Fare

I can't stand restaurant reviews. I don't have much time for cookbooks either, or cooking shows for that matter. I'm a big Anthony Bourdain fan, but mostly as a travel writer and memoirist who happens to be really into food. For the most part, food writing is pretentious drivel, one attempt after another to out-"scrumptious" or out-"salivate" a competing review.

So this is not a restaurant review. It is a story about a somewhat legendary Christchurch eatery that gave me a mild case of food poisoning.

Problem number one - the name, Strawberry Fare. It reminds of those silly 70s band names that put three completely unrelated words together, like Grand Funk Railroad or Three Dog Night. If Strawberry Fare, why not Apple Ticket, or Grape Season Pass?

I had duck. My wife had groper. She won. Hers was a beautiful layer of oily (in a good way) fish on a block of perfectly formed mashed potatoes. My duck was cooked reasonably well, its tenderness evidenced by the way it slid off the bone with one slight poke of my fork. The problem, and I realize this is not Strawberry Fare's fault, was that the dish tasted just like the preserved duck-in-a-bag I ate twice on a 36 hour train journey across China. The food choices on that train were instant noodles and duck-in-a-bag. An entire duck. In a bag. Vacuum packed, yes, but a bag still. I will no longer order duck. Ever. Again.

At Strawberry Fare we were seated at a window table; as soon as the duck touched my tongue I half expected the window to start moving. It's a wonder it didn't.

The menu at Strawberry Fare has one page of mains, and two pages of desserts. I don't generally order dessert in restaurants, as I strongly believe the perfect dessert time to be between one and half and two hours after the evening meal is complete. But Strawberry Fare is known for dessert, so much so that at least half the diners on this particular Tuesday (Fat Tuesday in fact), were there solely for dessert. My wife got some raspberry oriented chocolate cake plate, and I ordered the Ultimate Chocolate Dessert, described as something along the lines of shitloads of chocolate ultimately served on a large plate made of chocolate, to be eaten with a chocolate fork.

All of this I washed down with a bottle of Central Otago Pinot Noir.

I've been sick ever since (it's now Friday). I don't know if I contracted some kind of food poisoning per se, but perhaps one can poison oneself with an inappropriate combination of food and drink. The wine swirling around with the duck and all that chocolate, not to mention the appetizer of fresh bread and 12 year old balsamic vinegar, resulted in a chemistry experiment that I wish had taken place in a beaker instead of my stomach.

Is any of this the restaurant's fault? Probably not. But the fact remains that Stawberry Fare's very well prepared duck conjured up memories of licking glutinous duck jelly off my fingertips in the middle of China. Then the ultimate glutton's dessert mixed with some red wine (that I brought from home!) that kicked off my self flush response, and in hindsight my wife's main tasted a hell of a lot better than mine.

So, my apologies to the chef, but I'll never go back. To hell with that place.