Vanuatu is not a foodie destination per se. But we’ve eaten a number of great meals here, and one or two truly exceptional ones. We’ve also had the chance to try some local dishes, in addition to the widely abundant tropical fruits. Here are our favourite foods of Vanuatu.
Tuluk
Tuluk is a kind of small meat pie or dumpling, made with manioc dough, and stuffed with ground beef or pork, coconut milk, and onions. It’s then baked in banana leaves and steamed. It’s great on-the-go food, and the kinds we’ve tried have each contained subtly different flavourings (we like the garlicky ones best!).
Vanuatu Beef
The cows of Vanuatu are famous for their deliciousness. (We found this unusual, given what we think we know about the raising of cows…) Beef from the island of Tanna is recognised the world over, and we’ve sampled our share too. Three Pigs restaurant’s pulled beef burger our featured image above) won the burger contest. The dish that really takes the (beef)cake, though, is one we ate at the Stonegrill restaurant. (The views there are also pretty spectacular.) You order a plate of pieces of raw meat and then cook it yourself on lava stones. John normally resents having to do the work in a restaurant, but even he got into it.
Coconut Crab
The seafood here is excellent (including that which you cook on your very own lava stone). But coconut crab is a particular delicacy, and it lived up to its reputation. We are often a bit lazy when it comes to food, but we worked to get every bit out of this crab. The sweetness of the crab and the creaminess of the coconut were nicely balanced by sharp ginger and something else bitterish we couldn’t quite place.
But Wait There’s More…
As promised, we also ate a lot of awkwardly-cut salads in our hotel room. Horseradish dressing turned out to be the trick; hefty dabs of that plus cider vinegar made everything taste good (but we did not try the Oxford meat, however easy it may be to open…).
We know the genuine beer-drinkers among our readership will cringe at this, but we also enjoyed getting to know the local beer, Tusker. But our favourite manifestation of it was the lemon-flavoured one – just perfect on a sultry day!
And while there isn’t a single one of these we’d highlight, we did enjoy very much the French heritage of Vanuatu in the form of croissants, ficelles, and viennoiserie. Okay, yes there is: this spectacularly fudgy brownie, which it took us three days to work through. The best French pastry shop we found was Le Fournil de Vila. (See also our food shops of Vanuatu post for more from this place!)
So those are the foods of Vanuatu we most enjoyed – we hope you get there to try them yourselves!
To make sure you don’t miss a single moment of meandering, minimalist, magic, why not sign up for our fortnightly newsletter?
