Taste of Auckland is a celebration of Auckland’s top restaurants and local food and wine. This year’s event will be held in Victoria Park, in the city centre from 18 – 21 November.

Taste of Auckland is great for eaters like me that would love to eat at fine dining restaurants but don’t have the budget for it. Instead of paying $50 for a meal at Auckland’s top restaurants, try a $10 sample of their top dishes instead. There are also many gourmet food products. I tried Zest ice cream here for the first time. I’m a devoted fan now. I also tried Paraiso Lychee Liqueur for the first time at Taste last year. That stuff is magic. One thing I love about food expos is that you can ask questions to the presenters and the sellers and they all know a lot about their product and can give you advice. You just can’t do that down at your local supermarket chain.

The format is a little different this year with set session times instead of all day passes, I suppose this allows the organisers to control the amount of people for each meal time. You must buy your ticket to a specific session date and time so make sure you sort this out with your friends before purchase.

The restaurants that have been announced so far are:

• Clooney
• DINE by Peter Gordon
• Euro
• The Grove
• Harbourside
• Mudbrick
• Prego
• Soto

Their special pre-sale ticket offer has been extended until 29 September. $15 per  General Admission ticket. Door sales (if still available) are $30 each. Click here to buy a ticket.

Taste of Auckland 2009

Here are some photos I took at last year’s event.

We attended to two classes/presentations last year:

• FISHmart – All about seafood.
• Neat Meat – The truth about meat – Mostly about a side of beef.

We enjoyed both of these immensely and found them very informative. Great to see new products being used and tips on how to use them and common ingredients too. The rest of the time before, between and after the classes was spent wandering around the vast area of Taste eating, buying and sampling.

Steak tartare with white truffle oil & parmigiano from Jervois Steak House & Saloon.

I have always wanted to try steak tartare but I would only trust professionals to serve up a blob of raw meat. So many things could go wrong. It was fantastic to be able to sample Jervios Steak House’s version for half price. This was tasty and well seasoned. I think a taster was enough for me though. I wouldn’t want a full plate of raw meat.

Braised First Light Wagyu short rib with Mandy’s horseradish salsa verde, Telegraph Hill olive powder and sumac lavosh from dine by Peter Gordon.

FISHmart with Patrick & Paul.

Some friendly crustaceans.

Swoon!

We sampled the salmon kebab with pickled lemons. The lemons were a bit hardcore but the salmon was good.

Smoked salmon. Yup. Ate that too. Was it awesome? What do you think?

There was a lemon cutting competition to win a lavish seafood platter. Which in the end everyone had a go at devouring.

Nothing rhymes with orange.
Except poringe.
Poringe rhymes with orange.

– Vimrod

Neat Meat – The Truth about Meat.

Men and meat. They wheeled out this hunk of hanging meat and proceeded to carve it up into the cuts we recognise until…

…it looked like this.

Then they cooked up a few beefy dishes.

Here is Sirloin with tomato and cream sauce.

Beef and smoked mushroom. After a taste of this, I am now a fan of smoked mushroom. Smoke is a perfect flavour to pair with earthy mushrooms.

No, I don’t work for Taste of Auckland. I just like to share my good experiences (and enthusiasm for food) with others.

Have I convinced you to attend this year’s event?

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