If there is one thing the dragon fruit has mastered, it��s the art of the Hollywood entrance.

It��s not uncommon to hear a chorus of beguiled gasps when a dragon fruit - also known as pitaya or pitahaya - is placed in front of an audience. From the outside the fruit looks like a hot pink bulb ringed with a jester��s crown of curly greenish petals. Slice it open, and there��s a white (or, on rare occasions, fuchsia) scoop of sweet pulp speckled with tiny black seeds. Either way, it suggests an Italian ice meant to be spooned up for space freaks in the cantina scene in ��Star Wars.��

��The fruit is beautiful and at the same time very strange-looking, maybe like something from Tim Burton - from
��Beetlejuice,�� �� said Jose Andres, the Spanish-born chef, who arranges fried quail on dragon fruit sauce in a dish that appears on the menu at China Poblano, his restaurant at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas.

Suddenly the cactus-bred curio is appearing in many places . Skyy introduced a dragon-fruit-flavored vodka this spring. Celestial Seasonings, the Colorado-based stalwart of herbal drinks, recently began pairing powdered dragon fruit with green tea. There��s a Sumatra Dragonfruit version of Bai, a drink made from the unroasted fruit of the coffee plant; and a line of Lite Pom that blends dragon fruit with pomegranate juice.

Dennis Cooleen, an owner of the bar Alias on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, conjured up a dragon fruit margarita for a Mexican-themed dinner not long ago, and it was popular enough that he brought it back for Cinco de Mayo. ��It went with the Day of the Dead theme, because it��s white and milky with black dots,�� Mr. Cooleen said. ��So it kind of reminded me of an eyeball.��

Whatever the context, dragon fruit has a knack for getting noticed. ��A lot of people aren��t even aware of what the fruit is, but I can tell you that everyone is attracted to it,�� said Kevin Gardner, the entrepreneur who has been introducing a pitaya-tinged cream liqueur called Dragon Kiss around the United States.

Cultivated largely in Vietnam and in Central and South America, dragon fruit sprouts like a psychedelic decoration from the arms of a cactus. That can happen, however, only if the flower of the cactus is properly pollinated, and pollination happens only after the sun sets. But here lies the catch: Dragon fruit may look glamorous, but the way it tastes is open to debate.

��Because the dragon fruit is so pretty, your expectations are a little different when you bite into it for the first time,�� said Robert Schueller, a produce expert at Melissa��s, a California- based distributor . ��You think, ��Wow, this thing is going to be really spectacular.�� And it��s really mild.��

Attempts to describe what dragon fruit tastes like vary - it might be compared to a kiwi, a strawberry, a pear, a melon or a litchi, or it might be pegged as ��refreshing�� - suggesting a conundrum : What if the blockbuster flavor of the moment isn��t much of a flavor at all?

For now, fans of dragon fruit probably ought to enjoy the spotlight while it lasts - there��s always a new star around the corner. ��Have you ever heard of rambutan?�� asked Andrea Conzonato, the chief marketing officer for Skyy vodka. ��That��s my next obsession. That is a weird-looking fruit, and hugely delicious. I��m going to convince somebody to let me do that vodka.��


By JEFF GORDINIER