At large in Hawke's Bay

The Spouse and I got away from it all at the weekend and indulged ourselves in New Zealand's premier wine district, Hawke's Bay. This region, with its two cities, Napier and Hastings, boasts some of the best vineyards in the country.

The further north one proceeds here in Kiwi land, the fruitier the wines seem to become and we were certainly not disappointed with the vintages we sampled.

The raison d'etre of our trip north was the Edible Arts Fest, sponsored in part by Wellington's Capital newspaper, The Dominion Post. The Spouse and his colleague, Dominion Post editor Tim Pankhurst had been called on to lend their creative eye and judge the Great Live Food Sculpture contest.

Both are fairly accomplished "tooth men" with latent artistic leanings and appreciate the joy of food well-presented so were in their element mulling over the relative merits of skillfully arranged fruit, vegetables, shells, dyed rice, scone dough and other ingredients.

The festival runs from March 8-29 and focuses on the wonderful lateral thinking of today's food, wine and artistic professionals.

Today's column is not so much a recipe as a gustatory ramble.

We arrived in the Art Deco city of Napier on Friday afternoon with our friends Tim and Sue. The men set about conducting their business there and we all got together later for a drink in a bar with a marine outlook.

Afterwards I indulged in my first shameless outbreak of menu theft as we moved on to Caution restaurant and I tried some South Island cockles - something like clams - and then persisted with the marine influence and had a rather startlingly presented seafood brochette. An elaborate metal stand held a grand skewer of shellfish, prawns and fish and was served with a salsa and fresh herb rice cake (1).

Next day, after the more athletic had done beach runs and the more slovenly had done some retail therapy and antiques browsing, we set off for Seleni vineyard. My only contact with their product at this point was their excellent verjuice which I add to sauces and salad dressings, or enjoy with a slug of soda water for a refreshing drink.

Notebook in hand, I didn't have to steal a menu. Tim and I, showing excellent judgment, picked the "macadamia and sesame crusted market fish (groper) on cumin roasted carrots with a ginger mayonnaise and lime palm sugar dressing." Tim looks suitably impressed with his NZ$18 offering (2). Sue's teriyaki salmon fillet (3) on crispy noodle cake with a sweet soy and lime sauce with Asian vegetables, roasted peanuts and toasted coconut sambal was no less impressive. The Spouse was soon immersed in pepper-seared tuna on a Nicoise salad with potatoes, lemon poppyseed dressing and anchovy aioli - also a modest $NZ18.

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