Auckland and the Bluff Oyster Arrival

More eagerly awaited than the first Beaujolais nouveau in France, the arrival of Bluff Oyster season in New Zealand is given blanket coverage across all forms of media. Unfortunately, due to the apparent cost of transporting them unshucked, most NZers only know them in little plastic pots. Soul restaurant in Auckland has Bluff Oyster all you can eat events but those events are sold out before the oysters arrive. For those of you lucky enough to travel down south you have your very own Bluff Oyster and Food Festival in Invercargill 25th May 2013. I am going to make the pilgramage next year. For me this year it will be the Narooma Oyster Festival over the weekend of 4-5th May 2013.

I have eaten these wonderful Bluff Oysters (Tiostrea Chilensis is the scientific name and points to the other place in the world they are found, yes, Chile) on three occasions I can remember, the latest being last week in Auckland.

Following a family yum cha session at the Grand Harbour in downtown Auckland we stopped in at the Fish Markets when I saw this blackboard sign and couldn't resist a purchase. These little bivalves are not cheap and my intention to buy a dozen for $29.99 brought forth comments that called into question the state of my  mental health. However we are a long time dead so the purchase went ahead.



We were heading out to dinner that night with the Dancing Sister and while awaiting her arrival home I decided on a gin with soda and lime juice (the lime juice which comes in a pouch in NZ). Normally it would have been tonic but the tonic buyer was off his game. He was forgiven as I remembered with some delight that the tonic buyer isn't at all keen on oysters natural. This meant six each for the Dancing Sister and I.

Lemon cheeks were cut and the oysters drained of their briny liquor in preparation for consumption. The Dancing Sister arrived home at an unusually early hour (for her) and so I was caught short with a full glass of gin and soda and lime unconsumed. What to do? Scull the glass and then open a wine to have with the oysters or give the gin a go with the oysters? We went with the gin. The Bluffs really stood up against the icy gin and lime. Quite an epiphany!  I will be trying the same combination later today with some Narooma oysters (Sydney rock oysters - saccostrea glomerata). I am not sure that it will work as the two oyster types  are so different.

(Post Script - no, didn't work so well. The Narooma oysters, actually from Merimbula, were so creamy and and salty and the flesh so different to the Bluffs that it didn't work. Bubbles are much better here.)

Before leaving the Fish Markets I purchased two more items. The first was some smoked trevally. I hope someone enjoyed it because I flew back to Canberra before I had a chance to eat it. The range of smoked fish items in NZ is amazing. My mother, Kiwi born and bred, used to poach smoked fish in milk and then use the milk to make a parsley sauce. Strange as it sounds she also poached black pudding in milk and I do remember that fondly although it is decades since I last ate it.

 The second item was a  single serve container of feijoa ice-cream. Feijoa is a word that gets me really excited. I now have two smallish trees growing at Narooma and I am eagerly awaiting my second crop. It was lovely ice cream although not as intense as a feijoa gelato I ate at Newmarket in Auckland about 5 years ago. The shop was closed the day I visited on this trip. Sad.

And look what appeared this morning on the ground at Narooma! My first born feijoa for the year!! I had to take the photo quickly as it only lasted for two minutes more. Lovely.