Noodlicious at Dragonfly

Wellington on a Plate's 10th birthday kicked off yesterday and promises to be the biggest and best one yet. August is the time where foodies in the Wellington region happily gorge indulge to celebrate the end of winter.

Our first Welly on a Plate event for 2018 was Noodlicious at Dragonfly. This long lunch featured a modern twist on six different types of noodles. The flavour palette for each dish was complex and they were well spaced over two hours. In between courses, we could wander out to the garden bar and watch an ongoing Chinese calligraphy demonstration or order one of the many specialty cocktails on the menu.

First up was chilled green soba buckwheat flour noodles with zaru dressing, nasturtium, watercress, pickled shiitake and shaved mackerel.

Buckwheat flour noodles

The second course was tapioca cellophane flour noodles with poached chicken gallette, cherry tomato, ocean chicory, palm seeds and tom yum consomme. This was a very peppery dish.

Tapioca flour noodles

The rice flour cheung fun noodles with prawn, wild ginger, water chestnut, Chinese sesame and maple, garlic chive and chilli dressing had an unusual texture but proved to be my favourite flavour combination.

Rice flour noodles

The lye noodle box featured knife cut dan dan noodles with ground pork belly, pickled mustard greens, peanut powder and szechuan spices. The flavours worked well but the pork mince seemed dry.

Lye noodles

Chinese egg noodles were topped with braised black bean, beef cheek ragout, spring onion and a very strong ginger oil.

Egg noodles

And finally, dessert with a modern twist on rice pudding, made with jasmine and mandarin orzo pasta with jackfruit. Too sweet for me, but I was also very full by this stage.

Modern noodle rice pudding

We also got to take home a goodie bag from Orient and Asian Food Republic, which included a pretty noodle bowl and some mango and coconut biscotti to enjoy later.

Goodie bags