Incredible tarte banane, 350VT

Au Péché Mignon was one of our favourite finds during our trip to Vanuatu, and we returned more times during out 10-day trip than I care to admit! This very French café is located on Lini Highway, next to Prouds the Jewellers and opposite the Iririki island ferry. You can't miss it.


Despite being previously colonised by the French (and the English) at various times, Vanuatu was a lot less French than I expected it to be. Even though everyone learns French and English at school, I heard very few people speaking French, apart from the few French tourists and expats that we saw. I think one of the factors must be the huge (and I mean HUGE) influx of Aussie and Kiwi tourists.

There are still French influences around (restaurants, cafes, shops, the Alliance Francaise), and I found that locals would respond in French if you were to speak to them in French. But anyway, back to the café!


It's quite hot and humid on the inside, so I recommend grabbing a table on the balcony. They sell drinks, ice-cream, a large array of pastries (individual and whole cakes), as well as crepes and baked savoury goods. Everything was so tempting and I had a tough time narrowing down my selection!

Now, let's have a close look at their cabinets..



Mini cakes - cute!

Raspberry charlotte - made with local wild raspberries.

Old-school mille feuille, Salvador and Rhum Baba


And... the tarte banane!

A banana tart is not the sort of thing I'd normally order, but we'd come across a photo of Au Péché Mignon's version during our pre-trip research, and I was fascinated. I am so glad I ordered it, because it was one of the most delicious things ever!


The pastry was literally the best puff pastry I'd ever eaten - so amazingly buttery and flaky! There was a thin layer of dark chocolate, fresh whipped cream and banana slices. Just amazing.

These photos are from a few different visits - no, I did not eat all of this in the one go!

Iced Chocolate

Top Left: Tusker beer
Top Right: Lemon cheesecake
Bottom Left: Raspberry Tart (I actually liked the banana tart better!)
Bottom Right: Mushroom pizza


Ice-creams in tall glasses always make me feel like I'm on holiday! Their ice-creams were smooth and creamy - mint choc-chip was my favourite.

Top left: mini chocolate macaroon and mini choc eclair
Top Right: Chewy almond biscuit
Bottom Left: Nutella crepe - only 200VT
Bottom Right: Almond pave thing with biscuit on the bottom and crunchy caramelized almonds on top.

I loved Au Péché Mignon - it's a lovely spot to sit and relax after a hard day (hah!) of shopping, swimming or snorkelling. And their food was wonderful! Just looking back over my photos is making me hungry again, haha. I can't wait to visit again. If I were a rich expat living in Port Vila (don't laugh, it could happen!) I could totally see myself ordering their beautiful cakes for fancy parties. But until that happens I will just be saving up for another holiday there.

That magnificent creature above is a Birgus lato, or a coconut crab! Coconut crabs are quite the delicacy in Vanuatu. Before my trip, I'd heard of Vanuatu's famous coconut crab, but I assumed that it was a way of preparing crab, not an actual species. D'oh! These crabs are called coconut crab because they eat coconut!

When I was in Vanuatu, coconut crabs were available in many restaurants but - gasp! - I never ate one. There were 2 reasons for this.

First, they're endangered! Apparently sometimes the Vanuatu government places restrictions on harvesting, to protect the population. No bans were in place at the time, but I did not feel comfortable ordering them.

And second, they are one of the freakiest creatures I have EVER seen.

During our trip, we went on a (rather disappointing and expensive) "river kayak" tour, at Blue Water Island resort. The website makes the resort look shiny and new, but in reality it is very tired and old - our tour guide (who was lovely!!) told us there were no guests at all. It's half an hour out of town, in the middle of nowhere, and it felt like it was on the verge of repossession. I'm not sure if it was because of the poor location, or maybe the owners just stopped caring.

They did have some cool stuff though, including pools where you could feed reef sharks and beautiful big turtles. And a couple of cages of coconut crabs!

Argh! It looks like a massive creepy spider!



Check out those massive claws.

According to Wikipedia...

The coconut crab climbs trees to eat coconuts or fruit... Coconut crabs cut holes into coconuts with their strong claws and eat the contents; this behaviour is unique in the animal kingdom.

It was only a couple of days later, on a much better snorkelling tour to Paradise Cove, that we realised just how strong those freaky coconut crab-claws must be.

Aah... Paradise Cove

Part of our tour included a coconut demonstration, where our tour guide broke down a coconut.


The coconut is twisted on a stick to loosen the husk...

...and he uses a lot of strength to pry the husk away from the coconut.

Apparently the husk is used in many ways - for toothbrushes, as bedding for chickens, for kids to play with as little sailboats, to make bags and more!

Then he whacks the coconut several times with a big rock before he breaks it open...

... and we can all feast on the sweet coconut within.

It took him about 10 minutes all up, using a lot of strength and a sharp stick and rock. And these coconut crabs can do it WITH THEIR CLAWS!!


Previous visitors to Vanuatu - was anyone else more adventurous than me? Or less concerned by dwindling coconut crab populations? What did you think of it? (I know Ed ate some!)

***EDIT*** The first photo was taken at our hotel, held up by one of the lovely (and obliging) chefs, when a few of us sneaked to the kitchen to look at the many fascinating coconut crabs that had just arrived.***

Port Vila Market is a rather wonderful place. Located smack-bang in the centre of town, it sells an eye-popping array of local fruit and vegetables, flowers, delicious meals, laplap and other Ni-Vanuatu dishes. Business starts at 7am on Monday mornings, then continues around-the-clock until midday on Saturday. Yes peoples, that means it is a 24-hour market! Prices are clearly marked, there is no haggling, and no-one hassles you to buy anything. It is awesome.





And now for some close-ups of the produce...

Flowers, Stove Charcoal stoves

Coconuts; Eggplants and Capsicums
Papayas; Ginger
Guavas; Local Nuts
Woven baskets of yams; Taro and banana chips (oh yeah!)

Only 200VT for a whole punnet? Yes please!!!

These wild raspberries were gorgeous! I read that the season ends at the start of November, so we were lucky to find them. They were a little tart, the drupes were a lot finer than regular raspberries (it's a real word, look it up here), and they were also a lot firmer. (Most of them survived the day in a plastic bag in my backpack, without a proper container).
Lettuce and other veggies; some sort of root vegetable
Bananas; Pomelos with the prices written in marker pen


The LapLap Stands


Laplap, as I will have told you before, is the national dish of Vanuatu - a doughy paste of different root vegetables, wrapped in local cabbage and banana leaves and cooked in an underground oven. They will usually be cooked with coconut milk, and possibly a small piece of meat. A lot of work if you were doing it yourself, but luckily for us they can also be purchased for 200VT at the market. There is a whole row of tables selling various types of laplap, lined with banana leaves, and staffed by ladies wearing the traditional Mother Hubbard dresses and hairnets.

Laplap with chicken wing

Mixed root veggies with one chicken wing

CORN!

Laplap with island cabbage and chicken wing - that's the one I chose!

I was very keen to try one, but also a bit nervous about eating them in front of the locals. What if I didn't like it? Or couldn't finish it? Or just made a douche of myself eating it the wrong way? In the end I took mine down to the nearby park to eat in relative privacy.

Here is the lady wrapping up my laplap:


And here it is!

I opened it up on my lap, and tore small pieces of it with my fingers to eat. This left my hands terribly sticky, and I later realised that you're supposed to wrap the banana leaf around the dough, like a pocket, and take bites off the side, like a sandwich or a souvlaki. D'oh! The dough had a slightly grainy texture, which reminded me of one of the kuih my mum makes with grated taro in it. It also had coconut milk soaked into it - delicious!

The dough, as you can imagine, was very dense. I could only get through about half of it before I admitted defeat. I have come to the conclusion that the Ni-Vans can do serious carbs.


The Food Stalls

Towards the back of the market are several hot food stands, with long benches and communal tables. We weren't quite sure at first how it all worked, as there are no signs or menus. We discreetly asked some Aussie tourists what to do. Each stall sells something different, just ask what's on offer and sit down! It was usually meat or fish, with gravy and rice, 350VT for a plate. (And if anyone is wondering, yes, this is the same price that the locals are charged - I looked!)


Please, please don't be like the snobby old couple we met on a kayaking tour. When we asked them, rather enthusiastically, "Have you eaten at the market yet?", the lady scrunched up her face in disgust and said, "Oh goodness, no!"

I don't get why you would go on holiday just to eat restaurant meals at your five-star resort. I mean, I know we don't all have iron stomachs like me (heheh), and it's important to be careful, but seriously, live a little! Or at least don't look so disgusted at what the locals eat. Sheesh. That lady does not know what she is missing.

On our first lunch-time visit, we went to this guy's stall, for veal chops.
I know, how good does that look! One plate was more than enough for 2 of us to share, and had meltingly soft veal chops, onions, deeply flavoured gravy and a starchy vegetable. (Possibly white sweet potato?) It was extremely tasty and comforting.

I loved his giant pot of stew, and thought it looked so cool! I was overcome with a sudden desire to wave a 1000VT note in his face and scream "ME ME ME!!!!", but I restrained myself, haha!! Anyway, he was super friendly, and letting us know that if we wanted any more rice or gravy, all we had to do was ask.

We noticed that the locals' plates looked a bit different from ours - for locals, he just plonked the rice and stew on the plate, but for us he made it all pretty, with the rice in an upended bowl shape and the stew arranged around it. How sweet!

Next time, we tried the food at this lovely lady's stall.


Her name is Malena, and we discovered that she makes the BEST steak. During our trip, we came back twice more!

She also has some pretty kick-ass chilli...

The top picture is Malena's chicken, with veggies and rice. She said she didn't have enough chicken to make up a full plate, so added some beef. (I'm not sure what part of the beef it was, I'm thinking it was something like knuckle - heaps of gelatinous bits and soft, soft meat). Below is her steak - one large thin piece of beef, with a delicious savoury sauce. Malena also served pickled veggies with her meals, which were delicious.

Like our first guy, Malena was really nice, offering us extra rice and gravy if we wanted it. She also made our plates pretty too, and sat down and had a chat with us. I've been to some countries where you get treated pretty shabbily if you're a tourist or foreigner, and I thought it was just lovely that these guys at the market were so friendly.

Another thing we tried was peanut butter bread. Odd, I know, but seeing those stalls just really reminded me of Penang and I had to try some. For 100VT you get 2 massive slices of bread with margarine and peanut butter (or jam), and a stein of (instant) coffee. Very simple, yes, but it made my heart sing.


Two massive pieces of bread after slicing.

The stein - you can see the stall in the background.


Coconuts

Coconuts are everywhere in Vanuatu, and super-duper cheap at the market! Depending on the size, they range from 20VT to approx 60VT.

These ones below are drinking coconuts. They're a bit older than the green "fresh coconut" we get in Penang, and you can't scoop out the insides with a spoon. They are, however, full of delicious coconut water!


If you ask, they will cut a hole in the top so you can drink it straight away.

This young dude, below, didn't cut our coconut, but I just had to share this picture with you. He was preparing coconuts. See that massive knife he's wielding? I was absolutely petrified that he'd cut his fingers, but of course, no such thing occurred. I'm in awe of his skill!

We couldn't finish the whole coconut at once, so we took it back to our resort, and Steve the barman very kindly cut it open for us. He split it in half along the middle, and cut the flesh into a big spiral shape. I wish I had that kind of dexterity!

Of course, we poured the rest of the coconut water into a glass first.

We took the coconut back to our room and ate it on the porch, watching the waves come in.
Very juicy, sweet coconut.

No thick brown skin on the flesh!

I miss the market now that I'm home!