One Question Quiz
Metro editor Henry Oliver and Spinoff food section contributor/man about town Samuel Flynn Scott flanked by Dietary Requirements’ Simon Day and Alice Neville at the Metro Restaurant of the Year Awards at Auckland town hall (Photo: Metro)
Metro editor Henry Oliver and Spinoff food section contributor/man about town Samuel Flynn Scott flanked by Dietary Requirements’ Simon Day and Alice Neville at the Metro Restaurant of the Year Awards at Auckland town hall (Photo: Metro)

KaiMay 1, 2019

Dietary Requirements: Delving into the politics of restaurant awards

Metro editor Henry Oliver and Spinoff food section contributor/man about town Samuel Flynn Scott flanked by Dietary Requirements’ Simon Day and Alice Neville at the Metro Restaurant of the Year Awards at Auckland town hall (Photo: Metro)
Metro editor Henry Oliver and Spinoff food section contributor/man about town Samuel Flynn Scott flanked by Dietary Requirements’ Simon Day and Alice Neville at the Metro Restaurant of the Year Awards at Auckland town hall (Photo: Metro)

Dietary Requirements is The Spinoff’s monthly podcast in which we eat, drink and talk about it too, with special thanks to Freedom Farms. Deeply hungover, we delve into the politics of restaurant awards this month with Metro editor Henry Oliver.

This month, old mate Henry Oliver – former Spinoffer and current editor of Metro magazine – joins us in the studio for a post-mortem of Monday night’s Metro Restaurant of the Year awards.

Feeling a touch jaded after celebrating Auckland’s best restaurants a little too enthusiastically at the Negroni-laden town hall, we talk ins and outs, highs and lows, winners and losers and angry emailers over our favourite hangover cures – pimped instant noodles, cold pizza and Bloody Marys, the recipe for which is kindly shared below by Melissa Morrow of best-drinks-list winner Ponsonby Road Bistro.

Plus, Sophie tries her very first ever Cheezel live on air! What next, Alice eats a sausage?! Simon samples a scone?! Stay tuned to find out.

To listen, use the player below or download this episode (right click and save). Make sure to subscribe via iTunes, or via your favourite podcast client. And please share Dietary Requirements with your friends. Get in touch if you have any questions or requests: aliceneville@thespinoff.co.nz

We were too hungover to remember to take photos but our Bloody Marys looked a little something like this (Photo: Getty Images)

PONSONBY ROAD BISTRO’S BLOODY MARY

“This will shake life back into the jaded soul after a big night,” says Ponsonby Road Bistro co-owner Melissa Morrow.

“Take a big glass, add a minimum of 60ml vodka (you might want to make it 75ml), a heaped teaspoon of horseradish, about a tablespoon of freshly juiced lemon juice, a generous splash of Worcestershire sauce – I like quite a bit – a generous shaking of Tabasco sauce (to your preference, but we believe eye-poppingly hot is good), a big slosh of medium cream sherry, a crack of pepper, and a big pinch of good salt.

If you just stir that gently together, take your tomato juice (which is chilled, so you don’t have to add too much ice – we don’t like diluting our drinks too much), shake the bottle, top up the glass, put in a few cubes of ice, then a lovely big crack of pepper on the top.

Garnish with a big sprig of crunchy celery, or sometimes we pop a jalapeño pepper or some gorgeous big green olives on a stick to garnish beautifully.”

Keep going!