Restaurant Review: Flax and Rimu Grove Winery

We went to Flax earlier today for lunch for Maya's birthday. Flax is located in Mapua (30 kms south of Nelson) near the wharf and the smokehouse. We had a sampling of various items from the menu. The kids had the nachos which was surprisingly very good with a great roasted tomato sauce and awesome sour cream (yes, the sour cream was very tasty, not sure how exactly they did make it). Mari, Cecile and I shared the oyster and mushroom soup with toasted ciabatta bread. The soup was a bit tart for me, but mari and cecile liked it quite a bit. We also had the market fish (grouper) on a roasted potato cake and greens. This was quite good, but personally I dont think grouper is a very tasty fish to be used in this setting. We also got the chicken liver parfait with pita chips and a variety of jams and pickles. The jams and pickles were most excellent, the pita chips ok, the parfait was a bit too livery (according to Mari and Cecile). Definitely not as good as the version at Hopgoods. Overall, I thought we had a pretty decent lunch and we'll probably go back for a more relaxing dinner. I'd give it a 7/10

On the way to Mapua we stopped at Rimu Grove Winery. Rimu Grove is a small winery (20 acres or 7 hectares) run by a couple who are expats from the Bay Area. Barbara Stowe took care of us and we had a good conversation with her about things that we miss from the Bay Area (mexican food!). We tasted the Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and the Pinot Noir. We ended up buying a few bottles of each and we'll review them later (when we actually drink them). The winemakers are The winery has a picnic area which overlooks the mapua estuary. I suspect we will go back there with some other visitors in the near future. Definitely worth a visit if you are in the nelson area.