A short post about the foods in New Zealand for my fellow foodies. These are in no particular order.
New Zealand's unique food culture is a combination of popular restaurants. These include Thai, Indian, Turkish kebab places, Irish pubs, a smattering of lones star cafes (yes, they are referring to Texas) and British based foods, such as fish and chips, and mini savoury pies.
Other popular items are all things breakfast (called breaky), which is often served all day in many restaurants, with at least seven different popular dishes.
All types of really well-done coffees, which have a variety of unusual names: flat whites, long blacks, short blacks, and affogatos (coffee with a scoop of ice cream) in addition to the usual cappuccino, macchiato and mocha. Hot cocoa is a special treat here because it comes with a head of steamed foam like on cappuccinos (I think this was my favorite). And they don't leave the kiddies out either. For children they have a version of coffee called fluffies, which is a small cup of warm frothed milk. Mick's looked so good I almost ordered one.
Tea and scones are popular.
Smoked salmon on salads and sandwiches is common.
Salad greens are usually a mixture of small baby greeens, primarily mescalin.
They like to use pumpkin in a lot of dishes in chunks like cubed potato, but they don't have pumpkin pies.
They have a wonderful special sweet potato called kumara (pronounced KU-ma-ra) that they use in many ways, often as we would potato.
A mild cheddar is called Tasty cheese and a stronger cheddar is called Edam.
Gluten free foods are very popular and every restaurant sells at least one option, usually two or three.
They have deer farms sprinkled throughout the country (going back to the 1970s) and venison is on the menu in all restaurants that serve dinner. I had it once but I didn't know if it was similar to the wild venison we have in the states since I haven't had that in a long time. It tasted like a cross between beef and lamb. Deer farms are quite a sight. When you see a large bunch of deer in a field near the road you get excited, then you realize they must be domesticated because they don't seem undone by the traffic at all. Much like cattle.
Whittaker is the popular brand of chocolates and it was a well done standard brand.
Ice cream is a big favorite here and I had a wide selection of ice creams, including fresh mixed boysenberry, gelato, Swiss ice cream and even a delicious coconut-based ice cream.
In all restaurants they have self-serve water stations, with glasses and large glass bottles of cold water. It's really a nice practice. I especially liked the bottles - wish I'd thought to get a picture of one. Marcia thought it was required by law for them to provide this, which, if so, is a nice touch.
Some special fruit and vegetable favorites of mine were kiwi berries, the size of a cherry with a similar skin only green like an olive, and theytaste just like kiwis; pear apples (probably have another name), a cross-breed with the taste of a pear in the shape of an apple; avocados, tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries and kumara were big favorites as well.
Wonder Chocolate, which is an organic chocolate sweetened with coconut palm sugar, was amazing! Very light and no bitter flavor, even at 72% dark.
The croissants were excellent. Big, fat and flaky, I think they might have improved on them over the French. Can I say that?
That's it! I posted all my food pics together for reference as well.
