Seafood festival not to everyone's taste

Anna Bebbington, 9, from Howick samples a prawn at the festival yesterday. Photo / Sarah Ivey

It may have been the Auckland Seafood Festival, but some punters are asking where the seafood went.

Te Atatu resident Graham Wyatt said he was disappointed in his first visit to the "boring" Auckland Seafood Festival at the Viaduct on Saturday.

"After hearing of previous years' quality and being a lover of seafood, I persuaded some friends to come with me a give it a try," he said.

"The selection was very limited. I spied a paella stall, but after queuing I found that the paella was vegetarian. Seafood paella wasn't being served until five o'clock.

"I would have thought a vegetarian who didn't like fish would not bother going to a seafood festival."

Other visitors to the festival were left a little more satisfied.

Nicky Bebbington arrived at the Viaduct with her two children.

"Aside from the weather, it's been good," she said. "I didn't know what to expect but there's a good variety of food and events. I was expecting it all to be adult focused but that's not the case."

Mrs Bebbington says the cooking demonstration was a blessing - it was entertaining, high energy and had shelter from the rain.

Rob Waters and Chie Izumi were attending the festival for the first time as well yesterday. They were impressed by the variety of food but between rain and heat, they were looking for more shelter.

At the Kia Ora Seafood tent, workers were kept busy opening dozens of oysters. General manager Don Collier said they sold 350 dozen oysters in 3 hours on the first day of the festival, and he expected to do the same by the end of yesterday.

More than 20,000 were expected to have attended the fourth annual festival, with all profits going to the Stellar Trust, to battle P.