Zespri Kiwi Dinner

All Singaporeans like to eat. I’m a true blue Singaporean and I love to eat too!

This is the first time Kless and I attended the Zespri dinner event, we missed it last year with much regrets. The event was held at a very nice restaurant, Fern & Kiwi located at Clarke Quay. It’s a New Zealander restaurant that offers the best of New Zealand food, wines, beers, music and live entertainment. Definitely a place I would like to revisit in the near future. And it seems so apt to hold a kiwifruit event in a New Zealander restaurant too. Perfect!

We were one of the earlier guests to arrive and had a chance to talk to the person-in-charge from Zespri and got some pretty cool information about kiwifruit that we have never known.

- kiwifruit is a seasonal fruit, we get it mainly from New Zealand between May to Nov
- all the growers / farmers in NZ grows and sells their kiwifruit to only Zespri (it’s by law)
- there are about 3000 growers currently in NZ, producing about 100 million trays of Zespri kiwifruit for export (each tray is about 30-40 kiwifruit)
- there are currently only 2 types of kiwifruit available in the market (green and gold), but there are 60 types of kiwifruit in research in NZ now
- this year’s green kiwifruit is considered the ‘vintage’ harvest because in the beginning of 2013 (Jan to Mar), there was a drought in NZ and thus the fruit will tend to be sweeter and with more flavour

Here are the amazing kiwi dishes.

Appetizer
Seafood Salad
Marinated Prawns, Scallop, Snapper tossed with Zespri Kiwifruit

Mains
Pan seared Pacific Snapper Loin served on a bed of Lyonnais Potato and Kiwi Coulis OR
‘Canterbury Plans’ Charred-Grilled Lamb Cutlets served with Mashed Potatoes and Kiwi Relish

Dessert
Duo of Kiwi Panna Cotta accompanied with Fresh Kiwi Compote

What is a Zespri feast without the Kiwifruits?

Yummy!!