When me and the boyfriend decided to visit New Zealand as part of our “We’re Having an Early Mid-life Crisis Freak-out Tour 2011”, I fell to researching straight away.

I devoted perhaps 25% of my time to hotels and tourist attractions, and the rest to tracking down must-eat food tips. From Chowhound to random Google searches combining place names and cunning key words such as “food” and “blog”, I gradually created lists of restaurants and notes on treats to try.

Our strict budget meant many delicious-sounding venues were discarded, but for the benefit of fellow cash-strapped food lovers, I’ll be posting on some of the thriftier edibles we’ve sampled.