It's not often that I get to try a cuisine that I haven't had in a restaurant before. Even though New Zealand's Pacific Island community is large, I can't say that I've eaten much Pacific cuisine at all.

Q Restaurant at the Westin Auckland have a special tasting menu of Pacific Island food this month and I'm happy to say that I didn't shrink away from this cuisine and was actually pleasantly suprised by it all. Q Restaurant is offering a beautiful selection of food from around the Pacific, from renowned chef Robert Oliver for this month only.

My friend (Ms Fashion) and I sampled delicious treats from Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu and Cook Islands all with wines matched from Cloudy Bay. We started our Pacific Island journey in Tahiti, with four little tastes of raw fish preparations. Even if you haven't tried raw fish before or normally don't like it, having a small sample like this is a good way to try it without it being to put off by the prospect. Three of the preparations were delicious but the other one, the spicy sesame tuna I think, was quite sour and made my cheeks suck in.

Next up was a bowl of Samoan style plantain soup with coconut cream. My favourite way to eat plantain is to fry them, but this soup was tasty. Its consistency was like pumpkin soup but it had a nice little banana-ry flavour.

A Samoan watercress and watermelon salad, and mango sorbet later - we arrived at the main course. The menu stated that this was to be a shared meal and up until now, we were served individually. The shared component came with the main course, with the meats on a platter and the sides in bowls to share. Both Ms Fashion and I were blown away by this. A generous, tasty course was laid out on the table in front of us. Tahitian roast chicken, Fijian fish, Tongan roast pork and four tasty vegetable sides from Vanuatu, Rarotonga and Tahiti.

Each of the meats were quite different but oh so delicious. The Tahitian poulet roti a la vanille (roasted chicken with passionfruit and Tahitian vanilla) was unlike anything that I had tried before. I'm a sucker for tropical flavours, so I loved the flavour that the passionfruit gave the chicken.

With all my tastebuds dancing, we had one more course to go - and the favourite part of any meal for me - dessert. Dessert was three little tastes: Fijian banana and cassava pudding, Tahitian banana beignet (like a fritter) and a little jelly cube, which the menu said was Cook Island poke but I'm not sure that it was.

The standouts of the evening for me were the chicken for its fresh, tropical flavours; the banana beignet because it had a most delicious crunchy coating. Any perception that I had of Fijian food or Island food in general, has been replaced by the memory of this meal. Fresh, light and flavourful - that is how I would describe now.

This tasting menu is available until 28 May at Q Restaurant. $70 per person and if you want the Cloudy Bay wine matches, it's an extra $50 per person.

Thanks to Spark Activate and Q Restaurant for hosting Ms Fashion and I.