Cuisine of Viti Levu Island for gourmets. Places for dinner - best restaurants

Not only Fijians but also Indians, Chinese and many other nationalities live here on the island for already several centuries. Locals have always been creating new meals to cook from the products one can find on Viti Levu Island as well as adapting foreign recipes. So, nowadays there is a bunch of dishes which were borrowed from Indian, Asian, European, and American cuisines. It’s quite easy to find just sandwiches, fries, noodles, sushi, pizza, and many other dishes here. On the one hand, you can stay strict to your casual diet, on the other – it’s rather complicated now to find and try dishes cooked according to the traditional local recipes. You’ll have to go far from touristic places to outskirts or little neighbouring islands. One more option is to visit locals. But you can come to them just with nothing, of course. As you come there and join a meal, be ready that it’s ok here to sit on mats right on the floor.

Seafood, roots – usually it’s cassava, taro, yam, coconuts – and vegetables are the base of the local cuisine. Hibiscus and amaranth are especially popular. They eat meat as well but in small amounts, usually it’s goat’s flesh and lamb, still, they also sometimes eat chicken, pork and beef.

So, everyone should definitely try kokoda – fish pickled in lime juice. It’s one of the oldest meals here on Viti Levu and just the whole archipelago. One more delicious meal is rourou – quite a peculiar salad from taro leaves. Copyright www.orangesmile.com

Besides, cassava is definitely worth trying too – it’s a dish consisting of baked or fried tapioca with coconut milk. Vegetarians must like boiled duruka – a local vegetable which is also known as «Fijian Asparagus». Breadfruit can also be cooked and many variations, plus people make chips from it. Then, don’t miss trying ika – baked fish – and vakalolo – a cassava pudding. Palusame is another unusual dish – basically, it’s taro leaves in coconut milk.

A local kind of an underground oven called lovo is a rather interesting cooking tool. The word «lovo» means not only the oven but also a meal made from meat, fish and various vegetables which were cooked in the oven. There is no single recipe, people cook it differently in different villages.

Balolo – small sea worms baked in lovo – is a local delicacy. Fijians borrowed curry to their cuisine a long time ago and they consider it to be their own national dish. They take fish and seafood in coconut as the base. Still, there are traditional variations of curry with chicken, lamb or goat’s flesh.

There are lots of restaurants here on the island owned by nationals of India. Dishes are cooked according to the Indian traditions in such restaurants as well as some Indian meals which recipes of which were brought to the island such as local kind of ravioli, masala dosa – rice crepes with coconut milk sauce – and roti – grilled round flatbread. Topoi – Fijian dumplings – are highly popular here on the island. There are lots of Chinese dishes which were borrowed by Fijian and were just slightly changed as well.

As for desserts, you can order a pie with custard, pineapples or pumpkins, a rice pudding with cinnamon and coconut cream raisin with caramelized sugar and flour. Desserts made from grated cassava with sugar in coconut leaves is quite peculiar too. Then, you can also try steamed pudding with caramelized sugar.

Concerning drink, try tea – here people serve it with lemon leaves. In addition, locals also like juices and kava. Kava is made from yaqona plant with flavonoids.

Even though it’s a non-alcoholic drink, it works kind of as a tranquilizer and still influences your mind. People also like Carlton and Fiji Bitter, – local kinds of beer – Meridan Moselle and Suvanna Moselle wines. If you’re looking for something stronger, here is Booth gin, Bounty Fiji Golden rum, Cossack vodka, and Old Club whisky. Moreover, diverse beverages are also brought here from all over the world and you can find them in any supermarket in the capital or in Nadi.