Fish & Game NZ Wild Game Bird Food Festival 2008

Fish & Game NZ Wild Game Bird Food Festival 2008

Go to http://www.fishandgame.org.nz/Site/Features/NationalNewsApr08.aspx
For each restaurant’s menu in this year’s festival.

The unique Fish & Game NZ Wild Game Bird Food Festival has brought phrases such as duck prosciutto, whole foie gras, pheasant confit and semiboneless quail into New Zealand’s cuisine vocabulary.

This year the festival, for the third time, will further extend New Zealanders’ taste buds with several new restaurants entering the festival’s exclusive regional lineup - continuing its celebration of wild game birds as a new element of the country’s expanding cuisine and wine reputation.

Each of the 17 restaurants participating - one for each regional city throughout the country – creates a special wild game bird menu, based on several of the game birds on the hunting list and selects wine matches for the different dishes.
The game birds on this year’s hunting list are: Canada Goose, Grey Duck, Mallard Duck, Paradise Shelduck, Californian Quail, Cock Pheasant, Black swan, Chukar and Pukeko. The restaurant may select only one or several of these gamebirds for their 'special menu.'

Hunters bring their bagged wild game birds – dressed to the restaurant’s specifications - to their chosen restaurant a minimum of 24 hours before their dinner booking for the dish selected from its menu.

It is illegal for restaurants to sell wild game birds, but they can charge for the service involved in cooking them, and so each restaurant will take 15% (on average) off the price of each dish for the provision of the wild game bird meat.

Last year game bird hunters ‘flocked’ to the restaurants, bringing friends, family and colleagues to experience a wonderful cuisine occasion in which they could also celebrate their hunting prowess.

At the festival’s conclusion each restaurant offers a dinner prize for two is offered with these drawn by Fish & Game NZ from the game bird licences bought in each region.

The game bird hunting season starts the first weekend of May each year, and this year the festival will run from Sunday 7 May to Sunday 27 May.

The game birds on this year’s hunting list are: Canada Goose, Grey Duck, Mallard Duck, Paradise Shelduck, Californian Quail, Cock Pheasant, Black swan, Chukar and Pukeko.

Fish & Game NZ Public Awareness Advisor Shonagh Lindsay says the festival has become a traditional event, welcomed as a great start to the winter season and a unique opportunity for New Zealanders to taste and appreciate wild game birds prepared in a variety of exclusive dishes by the country’s top chefs.

à Deco
Whangarei
70 Kamo Rd
Kensington, Whangarei

Canvas
Waikato Art Museum
1 Grantham St
Hamilton

Cazador
854 Dominion Rd,
Mt Eden, Auckland

Bistro 1284
1284 Eruera St
Rotorua

Mortons Winery Restaurant
2389 State Highway 2, RD2 Katikati, New Zealand

Craggy Range Winery’s Terróir Restaurant
253 Waimarama Rd, Havelock North
Hawkes Bay

Nero’s Cafe/ Bar
36 Amesbury Street
Palmerston North

Matinee Café & Tapas Bar/ Restuarant
67 Devon St West
New Plymouth Central

Gusto Bar/ Restaurant
Ocean View Parade
New Plymouth Central

Hope Bros & Restaurant & Bar
Cnr Dixon & Eva Streets
Wellington

Le Monde Restaurant
64 The Bay Hill
Timaru

Bacchus
3 Main St
Blenheim

High Tide Restaurant
29 Kitchener St
Dunedin

Saltwater Café & Bar
272 Wakefield Quay
Nelson

Cook’n with Gas
Christchurch
23 Worcester Boulevard
Christchurch

Café de Paris
Hokitika
19 Tancred St, Hokitika

Louie’s Café & Tapas Bar
Invercargill
142 Dee St

ENDS

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