Showing posts with label new caledonia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new caledonia. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

eating & buying local...well sort of...

In New Caledonia, there was a lot of opportunity to have seafood. Vegetables we found out were very expensive, so most times you only have a little veggie as garnish.

This ceviche at Ilot Maitre had raw shrimp, pineapple, tomato and passion fruit, Satoshi really liked this.






Vine ripened tomatoes at the local market looked gorgeous, I'm not sure if 530 XPF per kilo (about 768 yen or US $6.67), is expensive or reasonaable, since I don't usually buy in bulk it seemed kind of expensive.

Shrimp is plentiful and I found out that they trade them with Tahiti for their black pearls. If you want to buy black pearls, you probably will get a better buy in New Caledonia because they get them cheap (the jewelers pay no tax because of the trade)! This dish was delicious, shrimp fried in a light batter on a bed of shredded lettuce, julienned carrots and cucumbers with a chimchurri sauce--we ate this twice on Ilot Maitre.

And look how big this papaya was.

We paid 960 XPF for this salad (about 1391 yen or US $12) at George's Traiteur, it was a nice change from eating panini or filled baguette sandwiches.

Satoshi's friend who lives in Noumea sent us this basket of tropical fruits while at Ilot Maitre. (Thank you!)

A popular dessert in New Caledonia is creme brulee, this one wasn't too sweet, but look at the amount--three demitasse cups! (and I ate it all by myself...hee hee)





Crayfish salad. I would be scared to see this crayfish in the river--it was huge!






Cafe Lola is the local coffee and is grown by a Japanese who started a coffee farm in the 90's on New Caledonia.


A delicious appetizer at L'hippocampe (Le Meridien Noumea)with cream cheese, smoked salmon, tomatoes, onions, a squeeze of lime topped with tobiko (flying fish eggs)--I wish they had served this with bread or toast.




Local jams made by Les Confiseries de Ninou. I discovered them at breakfast on Ilot Maitre and really enjoyed the Confiture de coco a la vanille (coconut with vanilla jam)--shredded coconut with flecks of vanilla, great on brioche and pancakes. I found them in Noumea and bought myself a large jar and bought the smaller sizes to give away, Gelee a Jamelon (black plum jelly), the coconut with vanilla and Confiture de Pomme-liane Papaye (passion fruit with papaya).

At the farmers market, I found this official checking out the fish.

Niaouli (melaleuca viridiflora) is used for medicinal purposes (I think we call this paperbark tree or bottle brush tree in Hawaii). When you break the leaf it smells like eucalyptus. The oils are used for cough syrup and antiseptics.

I bought some Niaouli bath salts from Pacifico Nature.






My best buy (or so I felt) was Lifou Vanilla (250 XPF for one pod--362 yen or US $3.15). There are 3 outer islands of New Caledonia called Loyalty island--Ouvea, Lifou and Mare. Look at the size of these vanilla pods!--the shriveled up one is one that I had at home, which I think I paid twice as much for. When you buy it from the morning market, the lady lets you stick your hand into a big glass jar and pick out the pods you want to buy! She also sold vanilla pods that were grown in Vanuatu for the same price. The vanilla really made my suitcase smell nice. (I hope it was okay for me to bring these back without going through agriculture, if not, pretend you didn't read this).

These chips were French, we found out afterwards that they have a local brand called "stone chips". The beer was definitely not local. New Caledonia imports the hops from France then sends them to Japan to brew and the beer was imported back to New Caledonia.

And what would a vacation be without chocolate! We found some local chocolatiers in Noumea.

Tonton Jules's palet d'or and almond bon bon--pricey goodness.

Chocolats Morand--ganache te (tea) noir and Noisette au lait--delicious. I was surprised that he specified the cacao percentage and where he gets his chocolate from on his bars as the other chocolatiers didn't.

Boulangerie Marais' mendiants--a delicious treat while window shopping.

George's Traiteur
Centre Ville 5 av du Mal Foch
Phone: 28.80.70

Tonton Jules
Ctre Ville 7 bis Rue du Gal Magnin
Phone: 27.39.49

Chocolats Morand
Quartier Latin 13 rue Eugene Porcheron
Phone: 27.31.77

Pacifico Nature
4 rue du Dr Lescour
Phone: 24.12.54

Les Confiseries de Ninou
Mont Dore
Phone: 41.19.22

Boulangerie Marais
Quartier Latin 21 rue Eugene Porcheron
Phone: 27.25.24

p.s. you can also find pasta, but be warned, New Caledonians like their pasta quite soft, so you may be disappointed.

Whew! that was a long post and a lot of food, there was also veal sweetbreads (a first try) and sarawak ice cream (spicy goodness!).

Since coming back to Osaka, we've had sushi and ramen! Baguettes and croissants are delicious, but you cannot beat rice!

I hope you enjoyed our adventure as much as we did!

Monday, September 10, 2007

noumea

From the Le Meridien Noumea, the town of Noumea was about a 30 minute bus ride.









Noumea's main mode of transportation is the car. You will sometimes see a scooter or motorcycle. Public transportation are buses or taxis and rarely will you see anyone walking or riding bicycles. If you paid for your bus fare before boarding the bus it cost more (200 XPF about 289 yen or US $2.50) than if your pre-bought a fare card (170 XPF about 246 yen or US $2.14). I couldn't understand the need for these cards other than to distinguish pre-bought and on-board fares and we often saw them littered on the bus and streets.

Much of the town is hilly, which gave breath taking views of the city and bays on clear days.

I was disappointed at how much graffiti was all over the place. At sightseeing spots, graffiti even covered the landmark or statue. Even houses with garage doors or walls had graffiti tagged on them.

The money in New Caledonia is the Pacific Franc (XPF). We were surprised at the size of the bills and coins, they were larger than what we were used to in the U.S. and in Japan. Unfortunately, our yen wasn't too strong so everything was REALLY expensive.

The marina area had many boats, but only 1 boat is available for rent to go cruising or fishing!



Most of the street signs were in French.


And the traffic signals were interesting. The smaller one on the bottom are for cars that are closest to the signal. The larger one at the top are for the cars further back of the line.

A new aquarium was opened a couple of days before we got there, they have lots of unusual fish plus a live florescent coral display.

Unlike Japan, there are many benches and places to sit to have lunch or just take a breather.





They even had a Chinatown (doesn't every city?). This one was called Polynesia Chinatown.

We were smiling when we saw this store called "Waikiki" in Chinatown.

I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly everyone was. Many people greet you with a "Bon Jour" or "Konnichiwa" on the street and especially when you enter a restaurant or store. You also often see people kissing each other on both cheeks, (even the hotel staff kissed each other on the cheeks when changing shifts!) You also see people yelling across the street to tell a friend "hi".

Despite the graffiti and litter, Noumea was still a great place to roam around.

Next post will feature everything French....stay tuned.

Aquarium
61 promenade Roger Laroque
Anse Vata
Phone: 26.27.31
Closed on Mondays

Le Meridien Noumea
Pointe Magnin
Phone: 26.50.00

Sunday, September 09, 2007

ilot maitre

From Osaka, New Caledonia is about 4400 miles (7100 km)--about 8-9 hours by plane. New Caledonia is an overseas territory of France in the Melanesia region of the South Pacific. Their official language is French.

New Caledonia has 2 seasons--warm and humid from December to March, average temperature 25C (77F) and cool and dry from April to November with temperatures dropping to 20C (68F) in July and August.

Since the time difference is only 2 hours ahead of Japan time, you don't lose a day going or coming. We left Osaka at 11:30 and arrived at the Tontouta airport at about 22:30 on the same day. Landing at the airport reminded me of landing at the Hilo airport at night. From the airport to Noumea it is about 50 km. The roads are not lit and they are quite winding, the van we were whisked off in maneuvered the roads well, but I felt like I was riding space mountain mixed with the drive from Kona to Hilo....blah!

Satoshi and I were both woozy after the ride, we checked in and went to sleep.

The next day, we were off to Ilot Maitre (Maitre Islet). The 20 minute boat ride to the island is a bit rough at times, but bearable.

Since the island has many coral reefs around it, the boat had to let us off quite a ways off shore.

The Coral Palms Island resort has many cottages and over-water bungalows. The over-water bungalows were our "home" for the next 4 days. These bungalows were just like little apartments, with a living room, deck, bath and bedroom.

Each room has a television and telephone. Television stations are quite limited on the island and since we also wanted to get away from "civilization", I made sure to pack some CD's. (The room also had a radio, but only one station came in and it was French-reggae.) Being out on the deck felt like being on a boat, except it wasn't rocking back and forth like a boat.

Here's what our days were like: Wake up at about 7, eat breakfast--the breakfasts were buffet-style with lots of croissants, brioche, ham, bacon, some fruits and veggies.

After breakfast, we would go back to our room and read or nap.

At about 12 or 1, we would go to eat lunch. There were two areas to have lunch. One was an ala carte style restaurant featuring salads and other entrees and the other more of a snack bar featuring panini.

Then we would either roam around the island or go back to our room, read or nap.

At about 4 or 5 in the afternoon, we would make some tea and get ready for the highlight of our day, watching the sun set! We were fortunate to see 3 beautiful sunsets. I don't think I've ever seen the sun that big and round before--kind of like the yolk of a sunny-side up egg.

After the sun set, we would go back to reading or chatting until dinner. Dinners were ala carte and we enjoyed many delicious and flavorful meals. (all meals were served at specific times so you had to make sure to go at the right time or go hungry! (no room service!))

After dinner, we would fill the tub and soak. (I also packed some bath salts.)

During the day, there were many activities taking place around the island. Guests could rent kayaks, jet skis or borrow snorkels.

During the night and early morning, the winds were quite calm, but during the day, the winds picked up and were a bit...brrr...cold. Many kite boarders took advantage of the winds and enjoyed themselves during the day.

I was amazed at how clear the water was and all the different fish and birds on the island. There was even one bird that sounded like a machine gun firing!

Being on the island was very relaxing and gave us a chance to live with nature (there were 2 BIG cockroaches in our room...ack!). We got to say "Merci" and "Bon Jour" a lot and since Japanese isn't widely understood, I was able to use some English and a lot of hand jestures.

Next post will be about Noumea, stay tuned!

The Coral Palms Island resort
Ilot Maitre
Phone: 26.05.12

UPDATE: Found out this hotel is now called L'escapade Island Resort

Saturday, September 01, 2007

see you in a week!

Sorry for the lack of food posts. I haven't been cooking much and have been trying to clear out our refrig as we're off for our yearly long vacation today. Satoshi gets 8 days a year (this includes weekends which I think is unfair) and has to take it all at one time or lose it. This year we are headed to... NEW CALEDONIA!

I hope the weather will be nice, Satoshi is looking forward to vegging, and I am looking forward to temperatures cooler than Osaka. (Can you believe our temps this summer were higher than those of Manila or Jakarta? I bet our humidity was higher also. And they said it was supposed to be a cool summer, boy were they ever wrong!)

The one thing I worry about while on vacation is my plants. Since we live in an apartment, I can't have someone come over to water them (well I guess I could, but I wouldn't want anyone having to come into our place to do so). I've seen and tried all kinds of gadgets--most have failed and many plants have died.

This one, has been the most successful. The nozzle looks like the tip of a baby bottle. Fill a liter bottle with water and stick the string in and screw on the nozzle. The little plastic piece at the end of the string weighs the string down so that the string can "suck" up the water at the bottom of the bottle.


Then put the nozzle into the soil of the plant and it waters the plants for you! I try to set up these waterers a little before our trips, just to test them and I also try to water the plants the day that I leave, for good measure.

See you in a week!

p.s. the other day, this little guy was concentrating so hard on getting pollen from this lavender flower that I was able to get REALLY close to take his picture. (doesn't he look like he's smiling for the camera?)