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| Queen's Wharf & the 'Cloud' |
Rugby World cup is only a month away now and Auckland’s party central is almost complete. As a thank you to all the contractors and consultants, there were drinks and canapés served in the ‘Cloud’ situated on Queens Wharf. Because I was involved in a bit of work on Queens Wharf (not the ‘Cloud’) I got to tag along. At first I was like this is great, finally a non-public opening the food is going to be great. But a few days before the night disaster struck.
First of all, I caught a cold and was put on Anti-Biotics. This meant no drinking on the night. Secondly, I was told by the big guys at my firm that there was an ulterior motive for bringing me a long. I had to take photos to document the night and the space. On a side note, myself and a girl I work, with have accidently become company photographers for a while now. For me, it was after I took a few photos on a company site visit which turned out not too bad. Anyway, back to the food… my cold meant I couldn’t drink and could hardly taste anything and my photography role meant I was almost entirely preoccupied the whole night taking photos of the building rather than enjoying delicious canapés.
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| The 'VIP' area, where the event took place |
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| Quite an awesome space |
I arrived with the some others from my office at around 4:30pm. The event was held at the northern most end of the ‘Cloud’, in the ‘VIP’ area. The area itself was pretty impressive, with a spectacular view out into the Harbour. You could see (and hear) ferries zip past on their way to Davenport. Although the interior had yet to be finished (see photos for the blue tarpaulin on the ground), I could tell that there were going to be some awesome parties come world cup.
A bar was made up serving wine, Monteiths, Steinlagers and of course Heinekens (this is probably the last time anything apart from Heineken beer will be seen on the wharf). Trays of finger food were scattered around the room, in a self-serve manner.
I started off with a few pieces of chicken sushi. Since sushi is already pretty tame in the flavour department, I pretty much couldn’t taste any of it. I always find it funny seeing sushi at events such as these, the giant wasabi ball always turns an un-appetizing grey and there are always only 3 sets of chop sticks. I then looked towards the bar to see if there was anything non-alcoholic. To my delight there was lemonade and real lemonade too.
Following my drink I had to go all over the wharf taking photos of the ‘Cloud’, the landscaping and furniture outside and the Shed 10 refurbishment.
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| Chilling out on the balcony |
Finally, after going trigger happy with the camera I could get back to the appetizers. I tried out some of the more elaborate dishes next (unfortunately, I didn't take any photos of the food as I was pre-occupied taking photos of the building). I had some crumbed gelatinous seafood thing, which was very interesting. Of course I couldn’t taste it, but it felt like chewing on jelly with chunky bits. Next was the typical bruschetta and meatballs on a stick. But what was new, were these mini tart things with some sort of cream cheese and roast beef topping. I could just make out through my minimal taste capacity that they were delicious.
So overall a good night for canapés, and next time I will endeavour to take a few snaps of the food.
