Fishy feast of firsts at festival

Fish filleting display at the Auckland Seafood Festival. Photo / Supplied

Despite marking its fifth consecutive year, the 2011 Auckland Seafood Festival has a number of firsts up its sleeve.

One of the highlights is a new format known as the Electrolux Restaurant Alley. Featuring four of Auckland's premier restaurants, Café Hanoi, Kermadec, Sails and Two Fifteen, each restaurant will present a signature seafood dish for serious foodies to savour.

The concept is to choose your favourite restaurant's tasting dish, match it with wine or beer from the bar, and grab a seat in the shade while being entertained by music from the nearby acoustic stage.

One of the city's newest additions to the local restaurant milieu, Café Hanoi, will feature Cha Ca La Vong (tumeric fried Gurnard with galangal and snake beans). The restaurant's executive chef Jason van Dorsten says: "The Hanoian favourite, originating from Cha Ca St, is 250 years old. The bright dish gets its colour from the tumeric and fresh dill garnish."

Kermadec is also a first timer at the festival. Executive chef Peter Thornley's offering for the Alley is sautéed barbecue prawns with Asian green tea noodle salad.

"We're cooking something refreshing and healthy to eat, hoping for fantastic hot weather. Besides salt water prawns the dish will be complemented by edible flowers grown and handpicked from my farm in the Bombays. This includes Anise hyssop, a traditional medicine herb used to aid digestion and Mexican marigolds which have a delicate tarragon flavour."

The other two participating restaurants gracing the Alley with their seafood sensations are Two Fifteen (flash fried squid on prawn risotto with a tomato salsa) and Sails (Pan seared john dory, grilled tiger prawns and rocket oil with preserved lemon and herb risotto).

Two Fifteen's executive chef and owner Jeremy Schmid says "It was impossible to choose only one dish from our menu so I decided to combine two of our local favourites - our squid entrée and the herb prawn risotto, usually served with snapper. If we took either dish off our menu we'd lose half our customers."

Two Fifteen is also debuting as a restaurant outlet at the festival and Schmid says: "Being a fisherman myself, I like supporting and promoting seafood. I'm particularly chuffed to be involved since the money is going to charity, not into corporate coffers."

The festival also has a new venue on the Viaduct - Te Wero Island - as well as a menu showcasing the range of seafood on offer.

Held over three days, from January 29 to 31, it expects to attract a minimum of 22,000 foodies, based on last year's attendance. All profits from the event go to Kiwi Can for Foundation of Youth Development and The Stellar Trust. Last year's event raised $103,000.

One of the event's organisers, David Savidan, says Pak'nSave is looking forward to going through at least four tonnes of mussels, if last year is anything to go by.

"Their mussel barge will be next to the VIP lounge to ensure that all the mussels are fresh off the boat."

The huge range of local delicacies will include oysters and mussels aplenty, scallops cooked five different ways, whitebait fritters, salmon kebabs, salt & pepper squid and seafood paella. Exotic dishes to look out for include mussel burgers, oyster burgers, curried mussels with kumara, paua with Rewena bread, scallop wontons, sea escargot and Stewart Island smoked salmon quesadillas.

To complement the fishy fare, music has been elevated to a new level this year with over 40 hours of sounds across four stages.

There's something for everyone, whether it's rock, jazz, soul, country, blues, hip hop or folk.

Manager of The Auckland Seafood School Jo Cooper says: "We hope to inspire people to incorporate seafood into their daily meals."