Auckland Wine and Food Show

I'm bushed. Tessa & I went down to the waterfront for the Foodtown sponsored Auckland Wine and Food Show. I spent about 7 hours, mostly on my feet wandering around the various stalls, taking in the outdoor entertainment and sampling, sampling, sampling.

The entertainment was varied stating with a light jazz act followed my a couple of mediocre pop music acts. Then came three impersonators, the first Brett Wallace as an excellent Neil Diamond impersonator. He looks a little like Diamond in the 70s, but when I closed my eyes I felt I was listening to the real Neil Diamond, especially during his Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show finale.

I wasn't impressed by Brendon Chase's Elvis Presley I think he should join the real Elvis on the checkout at Foodtown.

The last impersonator we watched was Steve Larkins as Freddy Mercury of Queen he had the moves right, the voice was great and he took the crowd with him. Full marks to him. As we drove home we discussed him and felt it was a shame that a man with his obvious talent hadn't managed to make it big as himself. He certainly had the talent.

Later on, Ben Lomis was booked to impersonate a pop singer, but we were tired and decided to go home. The show was set to wind up with Debbie Harwood about now, but we're already home.

The entertainment is really a side show & we were there to see and sample food. There wasn't much here that was new to me and it doesn't really compare to the much larger Auckland Food Show. It seems that about a third of the stalls were wine or beer, which is fair enough for a wine and food festival. There was a lot of bulk produced & semi-specialist cheese and smallgoods like sausages, and salami, a smaller number of stands with olives, pickles, etc and not a lot else. Tessa felt there were less stalls this year compared to last and I certainly felt there was a lot less variety.

Rating 5 out of 10. Worth going to, but I wouldn't worry if I missed it.

On the other hand, a bonus to Foodtown for handing out mini-fruit kebabs. Very refreshing.