Palm Beach Store do great coffee, toasted sandwiches and the most delicious savoury and sweet galettes. We take them down the beach and perch on the rocks, balancing the paper bags on our knees and trying not to get sand in them.<\/p>\n
Favourite restaurant for dinner with friends?<\/p>\n
Mexico in Ellerslie. It\u2019s so relaxed, and the food is so easy and casual, but with so many lovely fresh flavours. It\u2019s perfect if you\u2019re with a group who like to try out all sorts of different things \u2013 we choose a couple of dishes each and then share them around. And their margaritas are sensational \u2013 my favourite is black plum and cinnamon. Fortunately this place is within walking distance of home! It\u2019s also really family-friendly; we\u2019ve been going there with our grandchildren since they were toddlers, and there\u2019s always plenty of options for them.<\/p>\n
Favourite place to take a visitor to?<\/p>\n
I love showing off our amazing city \u2013 there are so many great spots to take visitors, it\u2019s hard for me to pick! The list includes the Auckland Botanic Gardens \u2013 they look just spectacular at this time of year with all the magnolias and cherry blossoms in flower, and the children\u2019s garden is always a lovely place to go if we have kids with us. Cornwall Park is always fantastic \u2013 a walk up One Tree Hill for the 360-degree views of the city, followed by an ice cream at the kiosk, or a coffee at one of the cafes. The West Coast beaches are always impressive too \u2013 a touch of wildness to show any city-based visitors.<\/p>\n
Favourite place to get coffee?<\/p>\n
For a grab-and-go, we\u2019re lucky to have Dear Dear in Ellerslie. They do snacks but their main thing is coffee and it\u2019s great. They keep it simple with just a few tables spilling out onto Ladies Mile \u2013 but most people just drop in on their way past. But if you find a roast you really like, you can buy the beans there as well.<\/p>\n
Favourite fish-and-chip shop?<\/p>\n
Charley Farley\u2019s at \u014cnetangi is probably our favourite place to eat fish & chips \u2013 after a big walk over the hill from Palm Beach (you can probably spot the theme here!), it\u2019s lovely to sit and eat really great fries and look at the ocean. But we probably frequent the humble but excellent Heng Seng in Ellerslie much more often \u2013we\u2019ve been customers there for nigh on 30 years and I imagine they know our order from memory now.<\/p>\n
Favourite trail for a hike?<\/p>\n
We always do lots of walking on the Te Ara Hura trail when we\u2019re on Waiheke, but in the city our favourites are the Rotary walk that takes you from Panmure bridge, right up the Tamaki estuary to Bramley Reserve. It\u2019s a good distance for a brisk walk, and runs alongside the water the whole way. At the Panmure end, you can see the restored mechanism for the original swinging span bridge.<\/p>\n
For a less energetic walk, we often go to \u014cr\u0101kei Basin \u2013 in the early morning, it\u2019s beautifully still and peaceful, and there are different levels of walk \u2013 we can just stroll on the grass by the water, or do the extra bush walk to the water-skiing clubrooms, or if we\u2019re feeling really full of the joys, we do the whole circuit around the lovely new bridge from Meadowbank to \u014cr\u0101kei. And we can grab a coffee afterwards at Ampersand \u2013 they allow dogs! Or if it\u2019s later in the day, Brothers at \u014cr\u0101kei is great for Sunday afternoon beer and burgers.<\/p>\n
Favourite venue for a gig?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to go past Auckland Town Hall. I\u2019ve been lucky enough to sing there in past years with the University of Auckland Chamber Choir and the APO. It\u2019s a beautiful acoustic to sing in \u2013 so resonant. And it\u2019s such a versatile space \u2013 I\u2019ve performed in there when it was set up as a cabaret venue as well, and for a special event during one of the Auckland Arts Festivals. And in complete contrast, I was in the audience for Alien Weaponry\u2019s crazy concert between lockdowns in 2020. It\u2019s an iconic venue and it\u2019s still a real catch-your-breath moment to walk out onto that stage.<\/p>\n
Favourite place to find a bargain?<\/p>\n
\u202fI think Ellerslie must be the new charity-shop hub of Auckland! Now that the new Dove shop has opened in the old Post Office premises, there are three of them in close proximity, plus a couple of lovely factory shops for well-known clothing brands!<\/p>\n
Kate Bell is the co-founder of New Zealand\u2019s largest choir network\u2013 All Together Now. On Sunday, November 9, they\u2019re taking to the stage at Auckland\u2019s town hall to raise money for the Auckland City Mission. Tickets available at ticketmaster.co.nz. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Palm Beach Store do great coffee, toasted sandwiches and the most delicious savoury and sweet galettes. We take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[51,22398,2033,24263,2199,156,22397,311,1364,10938,78,2517,4977,111,139,69,22399,9095,1963,180,4625,10041,10809,1120,223,165,1961,208,686,12025],"class_list":["post-100900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-auckland","tag-aucklanders","tag-bell","tag-choir","tag-city","tag-entertainment","tag-favourite","tag-founder","tag-her","tag-herald","tag-in","tag-kate","tag-my","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-places","tag-secret","tag-series","tag-shares","tag-singer","tag-spots","tag-sunday","tag-takes","tag-the","tag-their","tag-this","tag-tour","tag-week","tag-wellknown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}