All posts tagged: Auckland Seafood Festival

Auckland Seafood Festival 2016

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If you enjoy sensational, succulent seafood, then make sure you visit Auckland Seafood Festival this long weekend. My sister and I hit Auckland Seafood Festival on opening night and we had a truly delightful time.  We both love seafood so we shared a bunch of things we both enjoy. Arriving shortly after opening, there were no queues so we didn’t have to apply any strategy based on length of the queues. Last year I gave crayfish a miss because the lines were horrendous. Nothing like that this time around. We started with oysters and the Bluff farmed oysters at Sanford Oysters looked good to us. These were freshly shucked and served with malt vinegar and lemon (6 for $22). We had a little browse and then hit up Besos Latinos for some Peruvian ceviche ($14) and seafood empanadas ($10). The ceviche really hit the spot and the empanada (fried fresh to order) reminded us of a seafood pie.   Always popular at Auckland Seafood Festival are Auckland Fish Markets’ crayfish tails. This year they had grilled half cray tails …

Auckland Seafood Festival 2016 – double pass winner

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With special thanks to Auckland Seafood Festival I am pleased to announce the winner for the double pass to next week’s event. Running 5 sessions over 4 days at Halsey Wharf which is downtown between the Viaduct and North Wharf. This event is for seafood lovers only. Expect to gorge yourselves on crayfish, scallops, oysters, scampi, whitebait, paua, octopus, mussels and various other seafoods. A list of stalls and their menus can be found here. Drawn by Random.org the winner is… **drum roll please!** Fran Bulidon Congratulations Fran, I hope you and your friend have a wonderful time at the festival! Thank to everyone else for all your entries. Reading the answers reminded me of all the yummy seafood recipes I’ve made. More information including ticket sales can be found at their official website www.aucklandseafoodfestival.co.nz Don’t forget, I have another delicious giveaway to be drawn today, check out my Facebook page to enter. I’ll leave you with a few pics I’ve taken from past seafood festivals.   

Auckland Seafood Festival 2016 – double pass giveaway

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2016 has started with a bang. Like just about everyone else, I have some dietary intentions for the year. I was feeling like were were eating too much red meat last year, but instead of saying, “I will eat less red meat” I’ve been saying, “I will eat more seafood”. The thinking is different, the end result is the same. So far in 2016, I have eaten yakitori scallops, whole grilled squid, salt pepper squid, herb-crusted pan-fried salmon, bagel with lox, yakitori salmon, mayo-cheese mussels, prawn pasta, Vietnamese pancake with pork and prawn, prawn fried rice, prawn and fish butter curry, fish tacos and a fish burger. Not bad considering we’re only 15 days in. Here’s to 2016 being a seafood-fuelled year and hopefully I’ll will cook or eat a seafood dish that I’ve never cooked or eaten before. With Auckland anniversary coming up, we can look forward to even more seafood at Auckland Seafood Festival. Running 5 sessions over 4 days at Halsey Wharf which is downtown between the Viaduct and North Wharf. Thanks to …

Auckland Seafood Festival 2015 – food porn and review

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My seafood gobbling friends and I descended on the Auckland Seafood Festival at midday today with hunger in our bellies and a readiness to partake. Being the middle of Auckland Anniversary weekend, the city was BUSY. There was plenty of atmosphere and things to do. There still are. The layout of the venue at Halsey Wharf was quite different this year and the areas felt a little less marked out. No restaurant alley this year, but it was easy to navigate. There was plenty of seating, though the limited shade was snapped up quickly. The lines were short all except for the line for the Oceanz’s crayfish (from $25 for half) which was so long (about 40 bellies deep) we didn’t bother. My favourite dish was one from NSIA a school for hospo students. Pulpo in honey and balsamic, gazpacho caviar, Spanish olive soil, capsicum sofrito ($8). Pulpo is spanish for octopus and this dish was filled with bite size octopi. Quite an adventurous and sophisticated dish, it really paid off. We also tried their …

Auckland Seafood Festival 2015 is almost here!

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Auckland Seafood Festival is on this long weekend and I am way too excited. While I have firm favourite seafoods that I eat during the year (salmon, prawn, squid, mussels), at the festival I prefer to eat foods that I have less often. I have a pretty adventurous palate, there’s nothing Auckland Seafood Festival could offer me that I wouldn’t try. This year I’m looking forward to: Scampi Clams Whitebait Kina Octopus …plus anything I haven’t tried before. My list might be a little ambitious, but I have The Koala and two friends coming along with me this year and they all know that I like to share 🙂 What seafoods do you always eat and are there seafoods you haven’t tried (but want to)? Menu If you’re anything like me, you might like to have a little read about what to expect.  The menu for each vendor can be found here. Oysters Just a little note, as wonderful as oysters are, most varieties of oyster are not in season. Frozen thawed oysters can be lacklustre, so buyer beware. (Thanks for the tip Easy Food Hacks.) Cashless …

Auckland Seafood Festival 2015: Double pass giveaway – COMPETITION CLOSED

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OoooOOhhhh yes! Another giveaway! Such is the festive season. I love giving stuff away, don’t you? Thanks to Auckland Seafood Festival, I’ve got a double pass to give away to next year’s festival in late January. To enter, fill in the form at the bottom of this post, including a skill question. I’ve been to  Auckland Seafood Festival many times and if you love seafood, it’s a great day out. It’s kid-friendly and adult-friendly and a great way to try lots of different seafood in quick succession. You can expect to find: scallops oysters scampi mussels eel fish crayfish octopus squid sea cucumber turbo shells prawns and prawn killers kina (sea urchin) Some of these seafoods are uncommon so this a great chance to tick them off your foodie bucket list. If you’re a blogger and you eat some weirdo things, please share them with Our Growing Edge! Pro tip: don’t attempt raw kina on a hangover. I did it once, not my finest moment. Who knew that raw/live sea urchins isn’t an ideal breakfast food on a queasy stomach? …

Auckland Seafood Feastival is upon us

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The Auckland Seafood Feastival is on this weekend. It’s long weekend here in Auckland and you can dine on kai moana (Māori for seafood) on Saturday, Sunday or Monday. Every year I gaze upon the crayfish but never partake. I think this year will be my year! Find out more or purchase tickets here: www.aucklandseafoodfestival.co.nz Some of my photos from previous festivals.      

A sucker for scallops wrapped in bacon

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I’ve been gorging on seafood and booze all weekend and today is the final day of the Auckland Seafood Feastival. Please note, it wasn’t until late afternoon that I realised that it was a feastival rather than a festival. On a blue skied Saturday, I attended with my three of my friends at the opening time of 11am and we didn’t leave until closing around 6pm. I would say we gave it a mighty good bash. Scampi Street I’d been raving about Scampi Street since last year so we grabbed two plates of BBQ scampi to share. Scampi Street was slightly relocated this year and didn’t have the same “street” or alley feel. I recently learned that scampi are known as langoustine so if you know that term for it, you’ll know that these are sweet and fleshy and can be good eating. The scampi were smaller than last year’s and were not cut in half (crayfish style) for easy eating. The result was messy and a little disappointing. After I’d hyped it up so …

Double pass to om nom yum

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I am pleased to announce a double pass worth $40 to give away to one lucky reader courtesy of the Auckland Seafood Festival. All you have to do is share one word that best describes your favourite seafood in the comment section below. Delicious words like Mills & Boon 50 Shades for food voyeurs. Terms and Conditions One entry per person Valid email address must be supplied with entry and winner will be contacted by email Entries close midday Monday 21 January 2013 Winner drawn on Monday 21 January 2013 and announced on this blog and on the Facebook page You must be able to attend the Auckland Seafood Festival on any of the festival days: 26, 27 or 28 January 2013 Prize not transferrable for cash. No food, booze, flights, travel or accommodation expenses will be provided. You make your own way there You must be aged 18 and over to enter To be eligible, entries must fulfill the competition requirements Bunny Eats Design reserves the right to reject any entry if it does not meet the criteria above …

Dreaming of plump, sweet scampi

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Auckland Anniversary means that our little city enjoys a 3 day weekend. This mid-Summer holiday means locals flock to the beach and the outdoors and gorge on fine food and booze (New Years resolutions already forgotten). If you’re interested in feasting on incredibly fresh, beautifully cooked seafood, head down to Halsey Wharf at Wynyard Quarter next weekend for the Auckland Seafood Festival. A community project with proceeds going to local charities, there’s all sorts of good juju in attending this festival. Not to be missed if you love seafood. With over 65 seafood dishes on the menu there is surely several dishes to tickle the tastebuds of seafood lovers. The Wild Seafood Challenge is on again and for $12 a good way to tick off some seafood boxes. This year’s Wild Seafood Challenge includes: Raw Kina Marinated Sea Cucumber in Coconut with Ginelli’s Lemon, Lime and Cucumber Sorbet Marinated Grilled small fish with Kawakawa aioli Grilled Octopus The Mussel Mary with Ginelli’s Champagne sorbet Grilled Scampi Last year’s super popular Scampi Street will be back and …

Auckland Seafood Festival 2012

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Today, armed my sister, Joey, and our cameras, we tackled my first Auckland Seafood Festival. I always suspected that it would be an expensive exercise that wouldn’t be worthwhile. I was wrong. This festival really celebrates New Zealand seafood and the new location of Wynyard Quarter is perfect. Surrounded by water and boats old and new, the festival was beautifully decorated and it was often hard to figure out what props had been brought in to entertain the sea theme and what were already there. We arrived a little after 11am to a queue shortly after the doors opened. Greeted by seafood on ice, this was a nice preview of what was to come. If you don’t like seeing eyes on your food, then keep walking. We made our way around and quickly found something we couldn’t turn down. The Wild Seafood Challenge. There were 6 different items for $2 for each item or $9 for a platter of all 6. This included: kina, prawn killers, turbo shells, sea cucumber, octopus and kina shots. The …

Auckland Seafood Festival – coming up next

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I’ve been gorging myself on seafood lately. Prawns, salmon, white fish, sea cucumber, squid, more salmon, more prawns, more salmon…That’s just the last few days. I do love seafood and it generally seems to be the more politically correct “meat” to eat. It’s a long weekend here in Auckland as we celebrate Auckland Anniversary weekend. The Auckland Seafood Festival is on all weekend so if you are a seafood lover, it’s worth checking out. This will be my first time at the event so stay tuned for my report back this weekend. My sister Joey and I will be going on Saturday armed with appetites, cameras and general silliness. Tickets are $20 each and more more info can be found over at the event website: www.aucklandseafoodfestival.co.nz Things I have my eye on at the Auckland Seafood Festival: Scampi – If you like prawn, you really should try it’s hulking cousin. The meat is sweet and firm. Wild Seafood – If you’re into eating non-farmed food and are feeling a little adventurous, there is a Wildfood Seafood passport …