The world at your feet on K Road

Foodie GLYNN CHRISTIAN devises a walking tour of Karangahape Rd from Queen St to Mercury Lane packed with interesting things to eat, cook and create.

Begin on the corner of K Rd and Upper Queen St at the India Emporium. On the far right wall you'll find Indian-published cookbooks - Cooking without Onion or Garlic, A Book of Parsi Cooking, Indian Rotis and Naan, Exotic Curries and more so you can learn the right way to cook this fare. There is also lots of stainless steel, iron and copper cookware of the Indian persuasion: gorgeous gold-tasselled table runners, $32.

Onwards to Rendells Basement where you'll find the old dear has surprising uptown style, such as decoupage-style gallery trays, oblong or oval, $9.95. Close by at 214 K Rd is a discount shop that repays deep exploration. Stainless-steel mesh trays and bowls are sharply stylish yet $5 bags a biggish one.

In George Courts The Hard to Find Bookshop now occupies The Dead Poets Society site. A classy second-hand cookery book section includes wine and beer books. As a bonus there are tables for browsing.

Turn left past Starbucks and stroll down Mercury Lane to Mercury Plaza. Here the food court features cuisine from Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Penang, Thailand and Korea. The best looking meals are the Japanese bento lunch boxes on lacquered trays: a mix of sushi, tempura, rice and miso soup.

Gum Sarn Supermarket has everything you need to cook all styles of Oriental and Asian food. Walk to the end of aisle 7, and turning back find rice flour for your shortbread and at the front end, durian cream wafers. Around in aisle 6 are dried mushrooms and dried galette de riz, used reconstituted for Vietnamese spring rolls. The tea section includes Japanese styles, a pack of six small tins of specialist Chinese tea for $10.95, a great gift. Look here for laksa spice packs and chillies of every heat. At the back end of aisle 5 it's good to find tapioca and sago but further along is a real bargain, canned cooked quail eggs, yummy served with a dip of celery salt. The deep freeze yields fresh-frozen galangal, the camphorous root used instead of ginger in authentic Thai cooking. Stock up on barbecue pork buns and irresistible sweet buns, filled with custard. There are frozen whole durians, too, the fruit banned on planes, trains and buses because its repulsive scent is like celestial sewage on a hot day. Once past the nose the flavour is celestial indeed.

Return to K Rd and cross to Buana Satu at 229 K Rd. Fight for one of the super-chic lidded storage bins, made from recycled printed tins. Minimalist or "kitschen" bunny, you have to have one or two for potatoes, or flour or bread ... or show, $26 to $55. Nice with a campy $165 lei lamp to light your table.

Iko-Iko at 195 is where kitsch meets kitchen, hysterically. A seafood cookery book is How to Drink out of Fish Heads while Cooking Lobster in a VW Hub Cap.

They get worse, as do rude kitchen-based greeting cards. Glittery candle-holders, glowing plastic chandeliers, a $49 glitterball for after-dinner dancing and $5 tiki-topped green plastic salad-servers are fast becoming iconic.

Departure Lounge deserves extra points for bright orange chairs and huge sofas. The all-day breakfast is especially good, hash potatoes with aioli or hollandaise is amazing city value at $6.50.

Verona is a decade-old revamp of an institution, yet it feels nicely 60s. It serves mainly vegetarian during the day, a sharp, grown-up modern menu at night. Don't miss the false windows of an earlier incarnation out back, the collection of Crown Lynn out front.

Tamerlane at 151 is good for big Pacific/Asian food and fruit platters. Big fish-shaped ones are $29, elegant, slim, woven-edged wooden platters and bowls look far more expensive than $29 for small and $59 for large. Centrepiece perfect canoe bowls are $115 or $59.

Red-Letter at 141 is a crammed second-hand shop where personable Kelly Wilkie specialises in things not forgotten from 50s living. There's a phenomenal formica-topped dining table set upstairs, John Crichton-inspired mosaic coffee tables (from $185), a galaxy of bright art glass vases for drop dead table decor.

Now treat yourself to a coffee and plan which places you want to visit again.