4th Annual Rings Beach Food and Drink Festival
The 4th Annual Rings Beach, Coromandel, Food and Drink Festival, Saturday January 26th.
A new beach tradition, originally started to honour a birthday, has now taken a life of it’s own. Hosted at one of the beach homes this is purely a fun affair. Entry is free, and optional.
The rules, where there are any, are that dish is either a “sweet” or a “Savoury” and has to have a matched drink to go with it. It also has to be “Foreign”. So for example you could enter Sushi and Sake, if you dared.
Some things you need to know about “Rings Beach Life” is that you can’t enter something that you’d reasonably expect to have, so Crayfish, and Scallops would be considered a bit of a no, since they are regularly dived for by various residents.
Similarly there are some traditional things that you shouldn’t enter, a smoked Salmon for instance, as this is one of the centre pieces at the Rings Beach Christmas day gathering, along with Scallops, and Crayfish.
Everyone attending gets to make one vote in each of the 4 categories.
The prizes are awarded in the categories
- Best Dish – Savoury
- Best Dish – Sweet
- Most Original
- Best Overall
It was decided that there would be a new category next year, best cocktail or matched drink, which might turn into a best matched pair award, I hope it doesn’t since the Sangria served with one of the dishes was singularly brilliant!
There were three “Sweet” desserts, A Danish Trifle, a Strawberry gateaux and a Blueberry tartlet. Competition in that category is fierce.
The winner was the Danish Trifle, possibly due to an alcohol content, but it was really tasty
The “Savoury” category had a lot of entrants, in no particular order, and from my poor memory;
- Marinated Smoked Mussels, matched with a Stoke Smokey Ale
- Chinese Chicken and Corn Soup, matched with a Scrumpy Punch
- Lebanese burgers, matched with a vodka cocktail
- Lamb Tagine, matched with an “El Morocco” cocktail
- Cucumber Soup and Naan, matched to a Sauvignon Blanc
- Fish Pie, matched with a Chardonnay
- Cheese sticks and Sauvignon
- Jambalaya, matched to a Sauvignon
- Buffalo Beach beef bourguignon, matched with a Red Wine
- Pickle Dogs, matched with Budweiser
- Meatballs and chorizo, matched to a Sangria
- Possum Eye Pie, matched with a Red Wine
- and page 45 of the Donna hay cookbook, and a strawberry cocktail
The Winners;
The Jambalaya won the best savoury prize, the Beef bourguignon won the best overall, the possum eye pie won the most original
I ate some of everything and the Possum eye pie was spectacular, the Beef dish was divine, the Danish Trifle was a treat. And whilst I didn’t think the Jambalaya was the best dish there it was very special and tasty and did deserve to win.
The prizes consisted a selection of tiaras, wands and beads from the $2 shop, and there was a special award of a wooden spoon to one voter for being vocal 🙂
