Christchurch - Tram Restaurant

By Chaayen
To end off my NZ trip, we went for a novelty ride. I am sure if you hung out in Christchurch long enough, you would have seen many of these red trams going about the city. If you notice carefully, there is one special blue tram (that serves dinner on it) - Tram Restaurant :P
Because it was last day and it is honeymoon, we thought it was cool to give it a go. Afterall, this is the only tram restauant in the whole of NZ! Basically, it is a moving fine restaurant. You get to go on board, tour the town and be served a sit-down dinner and drinks! :P

It cost about $109 per pax. The dinner package includes a welcome drink, starter, entree, main, dessert and tea or coffee (so that would pretty much cost the same for dinner for 2 at any fine dining restaurant). The menu changes seasonally but would generally feature quality new Zealand produce. The service staff is very, very attentive and is always at your service.
We took the earlier dinner slot and we would recommend you guys to do the same. Reason being, Christchurch doesn't have much night lights and when it gets dark, so you won't be able to enjoy the architecture and town as much.

What we had that day:
  1. Welcome drink (you can change it to something that is something non-alcoholic) and Chef's appetizer (dang the appetizer is good)
  2. Entree - Meats' Coppa di Parma (really love it!)
  3. Entree - Cured Markt Fish (acquired taste, but try it for novelty's sake)
  4. Mains - Slow Cooked Pork Belly (Yummy, but the portion was so huge. Could barely finish it!)
  5. Mains - Caterbury lamp rump (Not the best lamp rump we had, but was still way better than the quality you can get in Singapore)
  6. Dessert - Flourless Chocolate Torte (ok, but not fantastic) 
  7. Dessert - Coconut & pandan leaf panna cotta (the pandan leaf gave it quite an asian vibe, I finished the whole thing!)

During the ride, you can expect to see the most of Christchurch. I particularly love the drive through a narrow streets where you get to wave at all the passers-by. I wished I had more time in Christchurch because I would definitely want to explore that stretch.
However, photo-taking on the tram may be quite of hard. Although it is not traveling at a particular fast speed, it is still too fast for the camera. Most of the photos I took on board of the scenery came out rather blurry. So, do allocate some time for photo-taking before the tram ride if you are a photo-taker. :) All in all, the Tram Restaurant  was really quite a finale to the end of our honeymoon. We just wished we had more time in this beautiful country.