Bugs for dinner? That’s what I ordered at the Sundowner Bar & Grill during a recent stay at Outrigger on the Lagoon in Fiji. Turned out this was a very un-Fiji thing to eat as it actually referred to baby South Sea lobsters, boiled and buried in an array of South Asian spices – and very popular in Australia.
But food, Fiji-style, has been undergoing some big changes in recent years – good and bad. The deep exposure to Western ways, such as the love of using processed sugar and refined wheat products, have led to a steady rise in diabetes and obesity among the islanders. On the other hand, a keen eye and appreciation for local foods and dishes on these islands is now putting Fiji in the front row of the world’s food stage, especially with such creative kitchen magicians as Lance Seeto.
I first met Mr. Seeto in Los Angeles at a lunch he had prepared as he was coming off a major tour in the U.S. showing of his chops and being Fiji Tourism’s official ambassador of food. As the head chef for Outrigger’s hotels in Fiji, he has managed to make waves in a crowded industry. He has done it all from his quiet office on a small volcanic island resort called Castaway Island in the middle of the Mamanuca – a three-hour slow boat float from Nadi.
His philosophy, it turns out, is not to offer up the usual pastas and filets that people expect to find on fine dining menus all over the world. Rather, it is to work with what he has, with what the islanders grow and with what they cook at home, and make it all palatable for foreigners who may never taste taro or see the inside of a bamboo stick or down a bite of raw reef fish.
Papua New Guinea-born, Mr. Seeto, who is Chinese in heritage and Australian (and now Fijian) in nationality, is not the kind to shy away from challenges. In Fiji he turns his quest to sourcing the best locally made tofu, surveying markets in Chinese and Indian neighborhoods and finding the indigenous pockets of culture to see what locals have been doing with their food for years and years on these islands. He puts his own twists on these discoveries to make dishes that pop. He does odd things with sea grapes, sea vegetables and sea urchins. He often uses seawater for brining and steaming. And he is big on gluten-free.
In Fiji, kitchens are usually cook pots in the middle of a concrete floor, or a lovo – a pit dug into the earth for smoldering hot rocks to steam through spiced taro and fish treatments wrapped in banana leaves. Or they are simmering curries on low flames in colorful and aromatic neighborhoods inhabited by South Asians originally brought by the British to work the cane fields.
PHOTOS: Fiji a paradise for foodie travelers
Curries are as much a part of the culture as kava and on Thursdays at Outrigger Resort on the Lagoon, the kitchen of Shailesh Naidu, Mr. Seeto’s counterpart who watches the kitchens at the Outrigger sister property near Nadi, gets clanking with pots and chopping boards for casual cooking classes that create such oeuvres as Indo-Fijian chicken curry, prawns baked in coconut milk, “poor man’s” mustard rice, and banana lote (a Fijian tapioca pudding). The chef and his team repeatedly win awards for their work, and those dishes often make it onto the menu at the resort’s fancy Ivi restaurant.
Mr. Naidu’s method, like Mr. Seeto’s, is less by the book and more by the senses. “More, more …” he keeps telling me as I daintily dollop spoonfuls of curry and hot spices into the chicken mélange. “Don’t be afraid to be bold,” he says, eyeballing the sauce and smelling the steam. But I am afraid. I have ruined more than my share of chicken dinners. I consistently overboil pasta and rice, and rarely meet a properly seared fish that comes off my stove.
On this journey I am all eyes and an open tummy. We drink kava with elders at a small village we find in the backwaters of the Sigatoka River. We later eat a lunch feast of chopped cucumbers, boiled chicken, rice, boiled collard greens, boiled sausages and Indian flatbreads on a picnic spread on the floor of the school house.
At dinner, we linger between bites of kokoda, a kind of Fijian cerviche with raw mahi-mahi and a dressing called ’miti’ made from thick coconut cream with onions, lemon/lime juice, salt and chilies. Only this kokoda has Mr. Seeto’s signature all over it and brings in avocado, cilantro, tomato and a cup of diced tropical fruits.
On my final night, Mr. Seeto served up what could be considered his finale and it was had at the Outrigger Castaway’s 1808 restaurant – Mr. Seeto’s personal tour de force and so named for the year the first Chinese arrived in the Fiji islands aboard the shipwrecked American brig, Eliza.
His plates were a study in cultural pandemonium: Build-Your-Own Peking Duck Kokoda (using scorched coconut milk and sea grapes); Green Bamboo Steamed Fish (in scorched coconut milk and charred sugarcane blooms); Ma Po Tofu; Pork Belly in Seawater brine infused with Indian ginger and guava; a Sizzling Black Pepper & Honey Beef dish came with taro gnocchi; and a gluten-free Beetroot & Rainforest Chocolate Cake shaped like an ancient monument to a Fiji god topped it all off.
Gods, indeed. Fiji’s food idols have spoken.
FIJI RECIPE:
Avocado Seafood Kokoda
1 lb. peeled shrimp, cut into 1-inch cubes
; 1 lb. sea bass or other dense white fish, cut into 1 inch cubes.
2-3 fresh chilies; 1 small white onion, diced small; 1 small firm tomato, deseeded, diced small
8 limes, juiced; sea salt, pinch; ¼ cup fresh cilantro, chopped fine, save leaves for garnish; ¼ cup fresh tropical fruit, diced; 4 avocados, halved and seeds removed.
Leave skin on 1-cup coconut milk
In a bowl, put half the lime juice in with the fish to cure. Leave covered in the refrigerator for at least an hour or until the flesh turns white. Strain and cured fish, dispose of the juice and rinse in fresh water. Set aside.
In another bowl add the remaining lime juice with the shrimp and a pinch of sea salt. Cover and refrigerate for an hour or more, until shrimp cure to white.
Combine the coconut milk with the fish and shrimp. Add cilantro, onion, tomato and tropical fruit. Adjust seasoning for taste.
Using a large spoon, carefully scoop out the avocado fruit. Dice into 1-inch cubes. Carefully combine with seafood. Serve with garnishes of lime wedges and cilantro leaves. Serves four.
Lark Gould reports on travel and the travel industry from Los Angeles. She blogs on Larkslist.com and covers trends on Travel-Intel.com.
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