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Grid patterns score its flesh and sea salt is flung into its wounds. Who knew such abuse could be so mouth-watering?
In South Africa, the braai – an Afrikaans word meaning to grill – is the perfect excuse to gather with friends and family. With South Africa’s chequered history, you could say it brings the country together.
Even Heritage Day, a public holiday celebrated on 24 September each year, is affectionately known as Braai Day.
The love of meat cooked over an open fire, traditionally fuelled by wood and often charcoal (but never gas) is something all South Africans share. It cuts through ethnicity, race and class. In the 11 official languages spoken in the Rainbow Nation braai is the only word recognised by all. Where Australians have MasterChef, South Africa has Ultimate Braai Master.
The bloodied carcass being thrown around our braai is a sirloin fillet, though cuts of ostrich, bok (antelope) and wildebeest aren’t unheard of, particularly in rural areas up north. Sharing the grill is an unsightly curl of boerewors (farmer’s sausage), similarly flung around with reckless abandon. Each skin has been stuffed with minced beef, pork or lamb and seasoned by a fiery blend of herbs and spices introduced by seventeenth-century Asian slave labourers. It smells great, tastes better and looks truly awful.
I’ve anticipated this meal since I flew into Johannesburg two weeks ago. For seven years I lived in the Middle East, often socialising with South African expats and gorging on barbecued slabs of marinated beef, lamb and chicken. Here in their homeland, though, the opportunity for me to indulge in a braai has, thus far, proved elusive.
The problem is that I’ve been holed up in various five-star establishments. Diddums, you say. But while I’ve certainly enjoyed their indulgent offerings, the buffet dinners served up night after night lack the intimacy of a backyard cookout.
On this particular evening I’m standing on the patio of a friend’s cottage in the Cape Town seaside suburb of Fish Hoek. The sound of ocean breakers can be heard dispersing against the sand two blocks away and the last burning vestiges of sunlight reflect in the clouds, much like the charcoal embers glowing beneath the boerewors. Another Capetonian friend from those years in the Arabian Gulf brandishes a pair of tongs, clasping our meal as a heron might a fish.
Gareth flips the meat and tosses it around the grill, ensuring it’s evenly cooked. Watching his constant jostling drives me nuts – I adhere to a less is best philosophy when it comes to steak – but I dare not challenge him. The man with the tongs wields the power and etiquette dictates that advice can be sought but not forced.
Potatoes baking inside a blanket of foil rest on the coals while appetisers are spread on an adjacent table. Sides of coleslaw, garlic bread and warm butternut pumpkin salad baked with cream and chakalaka, a much-loved local vegetable relish, are brought out to complete the meal. In northern provinces, they might also prepare pap – a maize porridge that can be eaten dry and crumbling or dampened with rich gravy.
Each of us cradles a cold dop, the Afrikaans word for drink. In this instance, the dop is a stubby, but it might just as easily be wine, especially around Cape Town, where bountiful ‘wine farms’ produce decent pinotages and sauvignon blancs for as little as AU$5 a bottle. Brandy is another local drop we forgo this night.
Whenever the Springboks rugby team is playing, or the Proteas cricketers, fans organise braais around them. You’re expected to be able to cheer on a national team with a full stomach here. But tonight the television stays off, and conversation hums around the hearth – what some here call the ‘African TV’.
For now, I’ll just cheer on the process. Their barbecue technique is unfamiliar, but that’s not to say they do it wrong. Far from it. When you can savour the beautiful South African climate with a cold dop in hand and the warm glow of the fire nearby – especially with old friends to keep you company – it’s impossible not to feel that this is how life is meant to be lived.
Serves 8 as a side
INGREDIENTS
1 medium butternut pumpkin
250ml cream
1 can Hot and Spicy Chakalaka*
METHOD
Peel and dice the butternut pumpkin, discarding the seeds. Place the flesh in a casserole dish and pour the cream and chakalaka over the top. Mix to make sure the pumpkin is evenly covered. Put the dish in a preheated oven set to 180°C for 60 to 90 minutes, or until the pumpkin is tender. Serve warm.
* Chakalaka is a curried tomato, carrot, capsicum and cabbage sauce available online from South African Products.
After 20 minutes of meandering, hopefully, along bitumen punctuated by dirt track, the tractors and bicycles are suddenly replaced by parked Range Rovers and Mercedes. And, like a mirage, the tall gates of Uka Farm appear. An organic family-run restaurant and winery that was founded by Albania’s former minister for agriculture in 2014, Uka is set among nearly two hectares of farmland and boasts the youngest winemaker in the country at its helm.
It’s one of a growing legion of local restaurants that seeks to revisit the traditional food cooked for centuries by grandmothers in modest country kitchens, and to pay homage to the rich, Mediterranean produce this soil has long nurtured. The menu at Uka is an ode to these simple pleasures: country-style bread, grilled wild mushrooms, platters of cheese from the Albanian Alps and a ‘village salad’ of rosy tomatoes, plump green olives and sweet carrot ribbons. Even the interior is pared down and distinctly rustic – think red gingham tablecloths, pine chairs and wood-fired brick kilns – to ensure the focus remains on the food. Subsistence farming has long been a way of life here, but only now is a farm-to-fork diet starting to be seen as a source of pride.
“We were closed for almost 50 years,” says Albanian chef Bledar Kola of the communist rule over the Balkan state. “When we came out we were like a dry sponge that soaked up all the water.” For a populace that was practically imprisoned within its own borders – with few allowed to leave and even fewer allowed to enter – almost any influence from the outside world was deemed cosmopolitan and aspirational. During those days, under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, chewing gum was rare enough to warrant shared use and the arrival of bananas was so monumental that it’s stained indelibly onto the memories of many Albanians.
Walking the streets of Tirana now it’s hard to imagine such austerity reigned only 25 years ago. The capital might be scarce of skyscrapers but it harbours more leafy coffee shops and restaurants than any other city I’ve ever wandered. By sundown bars in the trendy Blloku district overflow with beautiful young creative types languorously smoking cigarettes and drinking glasses of local red.
It’s families that fill the Great Park of Tirana, where ladies sell sunflower seeds by the lake and kids cruise around on trikes. Here, hiding below an apartment block with scalloped balconies, lies Bledar Kola’s new restaurant, Mullixhiu. Having spent the best part of his working life abroad – performing stints at Michelin-starred London restaurants and even Copenhagen’s Noma – Kola came home in 2007 to a country that was very different to the one he left: “Before the 90s there were not so many restaurants in Tirana. We also have a very strong influence from Italy so it’s rare to see Albanian restaurants, but we’re getting more open-minded.”
The Slow Food Chefs Alliance, which launched in Albania in mid-2015, has helped instil a growing sense of honour in local cuisine. But the hangover from Hoxha’s days still encumbers the city’s kitchens. “We have a lot of fresh vegetables in Albania, but eating them is considered a poor man’s diet,” says Kola. “When Albanians come to visit us at Mullixhiu they get irritated because only one dish on our 10-course degustation contains meat. For 50 years everything we had was rationed – people have missed it.”
With its collision of Greek, Italian and Turkish influences, it’s flabbergasting Albanian food isn’t feted globally. Vibrant city centre restaurants serve mixed mezze platters, citrus and pomegranate salads, thick stews and stuffed, roasted vegetables. In the dimly lit dining room of Mullixhiu it means a more contemporary stroll through Albania’s greatest hits. Small glasses of tart cornelian cherry juice. A crisp nest of kadayif (finely shredded filo pastry) perching atop a creamy and sour pool of yoghurt and olive oil, dusted with a salty hit of grated black olive. A bowl cradling petals of dehydrated cabbage – the sweet, concentrated tang offset by an earthy punch of powdered porcini mushroom. Then there’s japrak, the dill-spiked rice with a tender hint of verbena. The al dente curves of eggplant tossed with figs in a gooseberry and purslane sauce. A pocket-sized filo parcel concealing a quail’s egg. And the dynamite stick of blackberry ice-cream served within a bramble.
Although the technical mastery is on point, it’s the quality of raw product that is king for Kola. “Now I’m focusing so much on Albanian ingredients,” he explains. “If you don’t use the produce of your country it’s like being married and cheating on your wife.” The Slow Food Movement’s Ark of Taste project also seeks to shine a spotlight on foods that are at risk of extinction. In Albania there are 43 products on this list. Items such as mishavin, a delicate white cheese made by shepherds in the Albanian Alps; trofta e egër e Cemit, a wild trout from its freshwater lakes; and verëtrëndafil i egër, a rosehip wine from its southern valleys.
Mrizi i Zanave, an organic farm restaurant perched near the Montenegrin border in northern Albania, is the country’s original slow food trailblazer and proud parent to Mullixhiu. After toiling for years in restaurants in Italy, Albanian Altin Prenga and his brother Anton came back to their small home town, and with a ‘build it and they will come’ attitude, opened the restaurant in 2009. Such has been the success that even today tables book out weeks in advance.
A year after opening, Mullixhiu is still building its own reputation – and that of Albanian cuisine – meal by meal. Locally based ambassadors and foreign journalists covet Kola’s dishes, booking private dinners and visiting in their droves, but locals take a little more convincing, he says. “If foreigners come and tell us something is nice only then do we value it,” he says. “We have a very rich cuisine, but to revisit it isn’t easy.”
Kola’s modern take on the traditional dish of japrak sees whipped sour cream replacing yoghurt and nasturtiums taking the place of vine leaves.
Serves 2
INGREDIENTS
1 spring onion
1 bay leaf
10ml olive oil
130g parboiled rice
sprig of fresh dill, chopped
vegetable oil, for deep-frying
100g whipped sour cream
10g lemon verbena powder or lemon myrtle
2 nasturtium flowers for garnish
METHOD
Finely chop the spring onion and cook slowly with the bay leaf and olive oil over a low heat until softened.
Pour in 100g of the rice and continue cooking for a further three minutes.
Add 1 cup of boiling water and bring to the boil before covering the saucepan. Allow the rice to cook – without stirring – over a medium-low heat until it’s cooked but retains a slight bite, and all the water is absorbed. This should take around 20 minutes. Prior to taking the pan off the heat, remove the bay leaf and mix in the chopped dill.
In the meantime, heat the vegetable oil in a heavy-bottomed, tall-sided pan until it reaches around 160°C. If you don’t have a deep-fry thermometer for measuring the temperature then simply slip in a grain of rice and wait until it pops up in the oil and starts to crackle. Once the oil is hot enough, slowly feed in the remaining rice grains and wait until they are lightly golden and crisp before removing onto a paper towel to absorb the excess oil.
Arrange the dill and rice mixture on the plate as desired, before garnishing with the lemon verbena powder, the two nasturtiums and the sour cream whipped to a foam. Finally, top with the deep-fried grains of rice.
I am the lone student in what he calls Atelier Poisson Cru. Let’s be honest, it sounds much better than “a workshop of raw fish”.
That the class focuses on making this idyllic island’s signature dish is not unusual. The meal – tuna ‘cooked’ in lime juice and fresh coconut milk – came about because locals not only found making fires
to heat the fish tiresome, but also because they became bored with the same old ‘cooked over flames’ flavours. Variations of the dish are created across the globe, from poke in Hawaii to ceviche in South America, however it’s the mouth-watering addition of sliced vegetables and coconut milk that sets poisson cru (the name directly translates to raw fish) apart from the rest. “It’s so easy anyone can do it,” Bregeat tells me as he gets the table ready for us to work. “And soon you’ll be able to re-create paradise in your very own home.” Sadly, my French does not extend to “doubtful”.
The secret to great poisson cru, Bregeat tells me as we start our lesson, is fresh tuna. Many local fishing operators head out past the lagoons of the Tupai atoll, where yellowfin tuna in particular is plentiful, to make their catch. Not that any old tuna will do, says Bregeat, who insists red tuna is king. “Get white if red is unavailable, and kingfish if white tuna is unavailable, but never any other kind of fish,” he warns, before showcasing his jaunty chopping skills that are exactly what one would expect from a head chef. My own slicing style resembles “someone being forced to do community detention,” my husband kindly remarks.
I persevere and, although I must admit to occasionally being distracted by the palm-fringed scenery in the background, together Bregeat and I manage to slice the flesh and vegetables, and mix it all together for service – but not before he produces a coconut shell and palm leaf. “Fresh ingredients may be important, but so too is presentation,” he says. Once we’ve plated up, the dish looks almost as good as the view.
The taste? Even better.
At the nearby Four Seasons, poisson cru is available as an all-you-can-eat option at the breakfast buffet, and I can’t help but note one of the most popular activities appears to be deep-sea fishing for your own tuna. I watch as Instagram-worthy hunks on Instagram-worthy boats cruise off into the horizon and, hours later, come back all bloody and caveman-like. I approach one such gentleman who heaves a massive tuna into the arms of a kitchen hand to be ferried back to the kitchen and prepared for his lunch (and judging by the size of the fish, dinner and lunch for the rest of the week). A member of the resort’s staff scrubs down the gore left in the boat. “Poisson cru?”
I ask, querying the fish’s fate. He grins broadly, wiping away a tiny droplet of blood from his forehead. It feels like I’ve met the Dexter of the fishing world.
Happily, you don’t need serial killer tendencies to get your fix of the national dish on the main island – there are plenty of non-DIY (and affordable) options everywhere. Wandering along the main road of Vaitape, Bora Bora’s largest city, local fishermen have set up stalls in clearings between pearl stores, each reading a newspaper under the shade of the palms and displaying their day’s impressive haul.
I’m pondering what to do next when a car beeps its horn behind me and Gwendoline, an off-duty staffer at Le Méridien, throws open the door for me to get in. When I tell her I’m looking for the main island’s best poisson cru, she smiles broadly: “I know just the place.”
If anyone understands the addictive nature of the meal, it’s Gwendoline. She claims to have eaten it at least once every day since she started consuming solids and insists she will never tire of it. She pulls up outside Chez Irene, a casual roadside eatery, all cane chairs and stray dogs. If you’re going to eat the dish anywhere on the main island of Bora Bora, this is the best place for it, she says. A quick show of hands (mostly locals) reveals almost everyone seated has ordered poisson cru, and when it arrives – this time served simply in a plain white bowl – I can see why. The tuna is so tender it almost dissolves in my mouth like fairy floss. I make a note to come back here every day until it is time to leave. And I do.
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS
800g red tuna
1 cucumber
2 tomatoes
1 onion
2 carrots
2 capsicums
½ litre fresh coconut milk*
juice of 5 limes
*If you can’t buy (and don’t want to make) fresh coconut milk, use a good-quality, organic canned version.
METHOD
Dice the tuna into half-centimetre cubes and finely slice all the vegetables. Combine together in a large bowl with the coconut milk, lime juice and a couple of pinches of salt and pepper to taste. Let it sit in a cool place for at least one hour before serving so the flavours infuse the tuna.
A squeal breaks through the chatter. Flailing on the end of a young woman’s rod is a prawn the length of her hand. After sliding the metal out of its mouth, she tucks the critter into a net dangling in the water to keep it fresh until she’s caught enough for a feed. Next, she sets to work chopping red intestines with scissors and skewering a scrap onto the hook.
We’re in one of a half-dozen shrimping halls – fishing pools resembling swimming centres – in the Shilin District, located in the north of Taiwan’s capital. Taipei is known for its excellent seafood restaurants and venues sell fresh fish by the boatload, but from 10am to 6am locals pay by the hour to relax and catch a snack while groups of friends swing by before karaoke.
A typical night at this fishing joint sees 60 kilograms hooked and consumed. Staff members keep an eye on the quantity, adding more prawns to the pool each hour, and visitors can borrow rods and buy shrimp and chicken liver for bait. Barbecues line a wall, serviced by gallons of oil and oceans of salt. Punters skewer their catch and slap it on the grill where the shells turn from translucent green to the colour of sunset when they’re ready to eat. If you’ve caught the goods, that is. “There’s some trick, you need some skill,” says Francis Hu, my guide, as we watch a man topped with anime hair checking an empty line. A talented fisher might snare 10 in an hour, but most people hang around for longer.
Picnic tables cluster in the centre of the hall, where you can crack open your prey and munch to your heart’s content. If salt and oil don’t cut it, cooks will whisk your prawns away to the kitchen and return with something more creative. Noodles and vegetables are also available to order from a menu. A friendly man offers me a creature from his cauldron. Mounds of shells and tissues used to wipe fingers sticky with a glaze of soy, sesame oil, rice wine and prawn juice bury the tabletop.
This kind of casual cuisine reigns in Taiwan and street food stalls congregate at night markets across the country. At the huge Shilin Night Market in Taipei, country fair-style games give way to carts selling beef buns, infamous stinky tofu and squids propped up like puppets. At a market in Taitung, a small city on the southeast coast, oysters the size of fists glisten on display and I buy a skewer from a stall selling candied strawberries varnished in scarlet toffee. While handing over New Taiwan dollars my eyes catch on a sign saying ‘Sexy&Juicy’, with a picture of a pig in underwear exposing its plump derriere. Biting a fruit off the skewer, the sugar coating cracks, torpedoing seeds down my throat. Turns out candied cherry tomatoes don’t taste too bad, even if they’re unexpected.
Blurring the line between savoury and sweet once again is the ice-cream spring roll that finds its way into my hands on a muggy day. Scraping a wooden tool across a slab of peanut praline, the stall owner shaves slithers so fine it resembles fairy floss. She sprinkles the shards onto a pancake and scoops a lilac orb of taro ice-cream next to a white sweet apple one. Coriander leaves go on top and it’s all wrapped up like a giant burrito. Teeth battle time in the quest to consume the roll before the ice-cream melts.
Before the Han Chinese flooded over in the seventeenth century, Taipei was a big basin dotted with indigenous villages. Now the metropolis feels a lot like Tokyo or Seoul – albeit with only 2.7 million people within its limits. Travel down the coast or into the mountains, however, and you’ll find tribal villages eking out a twenty-first century lifestyle melded with traditional ways. Francis takes me to the Fataan Wetlands in the Hualien Province to try my hand at palakaw fishing with members of the Amis tribe.
Unlike the familiar hook-and-line method, the Amis style sees us knee-deep in a river, checking bamboo tubes placed on the bottom. The villagers layer grass, sticks and bamboo in sections of the waterway, with each level designed to attract a different type of beast. “The marine life has no clothes so it likes to hide in the shade,” explains Lalan Unak, founder of the Fataan Pangcah Cultural Workshop, as we plug one end of the bamboo with a hand and pour water out of the other side hoping to find a nude eel or catfish hiding within. Shrimp and crabs dwell in the branches of the second level to avoid being eaten by the next: “The fish with clothes, with scales.”
To cook our haul, Lalan pours water into a bowl folded together from betel nut leaf and adds watercress. Rocks plucked from a fire slip in next and finally fish, which cooks as the rocks release pent-up energy into the soup.
Taiwanese tourists flock to the Cifadahan Restaurant in Hualien to try the traditional hotpot. Woodcarvings chiselled by the owner, an Amis witchdoctor named Na Kaw, scatter the site. Here, juicy slabs of perch are boiled on a trolley next to your table. A dash of salt brings out the subtle flavour of the fish. It’s an excellent way to try this traditional meal without getting your feet wet, but nothing quite beats catching your own.
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS
½ cup skinless unsalted peanuts
½ cup caster sugar
4 frozen spring roll pastry sheets
1 or 2 tubs of good quality ice-cream or gelato (tropical fruit flavours are best)
6 tbsp torn coriander leaves
METHOD
Preheat oven to 200°C. Place the peanuts on a tray lined with baking paper and heat in the oven for five minutes or until they start to change colour.
While the peanuts are roasting, combine the sugar and two tablespoons of water in a medium saucepan. Stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and gently simmer for about 15 minutes, until it starts to thicken and turns golden. While it simmers, brush off sugar stuck to the sides with a pastry brush dipped in water.
Take the sugar syrup off the heat and add the peanuts and a pinch of salt. Stir until well coated and pour the mix back onto the baking paper-lined tray. Leave to set for at least an hour.
Remove the spring roll sheets from the freezer and allow to defrost before separating. Crush the peanut brittle with a mortar and pestle until quite finely ground. Lay the spring roll wrappers out flat and spoon crushed peanut brittle into the middle of each, reserving half. Place two scoops of ice-cream on top then sprinkle with coriander leaves and the remaining peanut brittle. Fold two sides in and roll each up like a spring roll. Eat immediately.
I’m at the headquarters of Abernethy Butter, set on a beautiful hillside in Northern Ireland’s County Down. It’s April and sunshine bathes the green valleys in a warmth not usually felt here at this time of year.
Northern Ireland was not always so lush. During the Great Famine between 1845 and 1852, a crop disease laid waste to the humble potato, causing mass starvation and forcing more than a million Irish to emigrate. The notion of eating for pleasure was as foreign as a fruitful crop. But the land that once offered little now thrives, and farmers and chefs are forgoing industrial production for traditional methods and inspiring home cooking.
For buttermakers Will and Alison Abernethy, what started as a hobby took on a life of its own. Their demonstrations at a local market inspired frenzied queues and word spread quickly. Not long after, they were discovered by Heston Blumenthal. Their award-winning butter is now served at his Michelin-starred restaurant the Fat Duck, and sold at fancy London grocer Fortnum & Mason, as well as speciality stores across Ireland and the UK. What makes their product so special is, unlike mass-produced spreads, Abernethy Butter is made by hand.
“There are only three ingredients in our butters – cream, salt and lots of love,” says Will as he pours cream into a churn. As he turns the lever by hand, the liquid separates into fluffy butter and buttermilk. The butter is then scooped out and washed in a bowl until the water runs clear.
This keeps it fresh. With a pinch or two of salt added, it’s then shaped with wooden paddles, set and packaged.
“Some say it’s therapeutic, like being back at school and playing with Play-Doh,” says Will as he slaps the butter between the paddles before rolling it into its unique shape. “But when you’ve done six or 700 that day, it’s not so therapeutic,” he chuckles.
While tedium might rear its head, the taste makes the effort worth it.
On the other side of the country in County Fermanagh, butcher Pat O’Doherty is also defying the status quo. His shop, O’Doherty’s Fine Meats in Enniskillen, offers an array of products, but his black bacon is revered for its incredible flavour and humane production.
An environmentalist at heart, Pat believes one of the biggest challenges of his profession is finding ethical ways to ply his trade, so he purchased Inishcorkish Island, a small woodland isle in Upper Lough Erne, where his herd of pigs has free rein. Seeing photographs of them foraging for roots in the long grass, it’s easy to see why these plump animals are referred to as ‘happy’ pigs.
“The ethical idea is to give something back to the pigs,” says Pat. “Letting them live to create their own culture in the wild.”
It’s a refreshing stance in an industry that’s consistently scrutinised for poor treatment of animals and the use of additives. Pat employs traditional techniques to ensure his black bacon is free from nitrates, the chemicals used to infuse colour and prolong shelf life but that are also thought to be carcinogenic. “Whenever you eat bacon – normal bacon or a piece of hot ham – you’re exposing yourself to risk. That’s why we create nitrate-free bacon.” His methods are working. Having won numerous awards, demand for his meat has gone worldwide, and the passage of customers through his shop is a testament to its success.
No one is leading the charge in the farm-to-table revolution with more enthusiasm than Noel McMeel. As executive chef of Catalina Restaurant at Lough Erne Resort, Noel’s philosophy involves finding and serving the best local, seasonal ingredients. Having trained at some of the world’s finest cookery schools, his skills and his resume are impressive – he’s cooked for the who’s who, including Barack Obama and the Queen, and catered Paul McCartney’s wedding.
But Noel remains true to his roots, attributing his passion for food to his childhood spent enjoying his mother’s cooking.
As I sit down to a candlelit dinner, I’m ready for a gastronomic experience. The soda bread is infused with quirky flavours like treacle and curry. There’s artful pork terrine, a selection from O’Doherty’s Fine Meats, and a dessert of the light-as-air blueberry soufflé.
The next morning Noel gives us a lesson on breakfast. “I love simple flavours,” he says as he sprinkles sea salt over mushrooms. “Taking great ingredients, cooking as little as possible but with great skill.”
It’s invigorating to witness this simplicity in action as he spreads handfuls of shredded ham and black pudding on each mushroom, then cracks a duck egg in the centre, before haphazardly tossing cheese over the top.
Having grown up on a small farm in Toomebridge, Noel is passionate about championing local producers. “I went with: what is tradition in this area? We should all be serving unsalted butter, but I do the opposite – if somebody local is doing country butter I really want to show them off. Or ice-cream. I always made ice-cream, but then I stopped because I got somebody who can make it better than I can. It’s just superb.”
A tantalising smell permeates the room as the baked mushrooms are retrieved from the oven. The steaming mess seems out of place in a five-star restaurant, but when I take a bite, it’s the perfect fusion of flavours. Warm yolk floods my mouth, coursing over the firm salty mushroom, soft black pudding and melted cheddar. I’m so wrapped up in the richness I forget its appearance and, momentarily, my own name. With flavours like this, it’s clear there’s an Irish food renaissance and I, for one, welcome it with relish.
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS
4 large brown or portobello mushrooms
sea salt
2 tbs canola oil
1 cup shredded ham
½ black pudding, chopped into 1cm cubes
1 onion, diced
4 duck eggs
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan-forced. Wipe the mushrooms and place on a lined baking tray. Sprinkle with sea salt and a dash of oil, followed by ham, black pudding and onion. Crack a duck egg over the top of each mushroom then sprinkle with cheese. Place in the oven for 10 minutes. Cut in half and serve.
Noel McMeel’s cookbook The Irish Pantry: Traditional Breads, Preserves and Goodies to Feed the Ones You Love is available from Amazon.
Located right on Makati Avenue is a bona fide food zoo. A. Venue Mall’s food hall is a street-food delight. Housed beneath a giant tent, your plate-up wish is your desire here. Sisig (pig head and liver), puto bumbong (steamed rice cake), lechon manok (spit-roast chicken)… You name it, it’s here, and at amazingly cheap prices. The scents and endless array of food in front of me has my mouth salivating as I make a beeline for the exotic meats and marinated chicken intestines grilled to perfection.
I was promised they’d be a savoury delight not to be missed, and they don’t disappoint. My only wish besides eating more is opting to not know exactly what it is on each skewer. Luckily, the live music distracts me from my nonsensical phobias and, of course, the cold (and cheap) San Miguel beer is plentiful. It washes down the spice and any unsavoury thoughts about the dish ingredients.
A brave slide down Jacobo Street, carefully navigating past midget boxing and waves of prostitutes throwing advances my way, I arrive at a secret hip restaurant in old downtown Poblacion. Violet neon signs welcome me to Polilya, a restaurant and lounge that’s so cool I wonder if I’ve just walked off the streets of Makati and into Brazil circa 1960.
Designed to within an inch of its life, it’s obvious the people of Polilya take food and drink very seriously. World-class bartenders create ambrosia in a glass on a nightly basis, and it’s all dangerously delicious. Jesse Estes is commanding the zinc and copper bar tonight and, with a shake here and a mix there, he serves me a drink so tasty I’m in danger of becoming addicted.
The cocktails aren’t the only things that delight my taste buds, though. The food here is toothsome, forward-thinking and a novel take on classic Philippine dishes. The spice of the Gangnam-style chicken wings melts my palate, but I have no doubt the Bangla mussels are the kitchen hands’ favourite order – each bowl returns to the kitchen as if already cleaned. And that’s just the entree.
Steak and ale pie, crab cakes and a burger that makes me rethink my religion are all on the menu for the main course. With belly full and legs light, I’m a happy camper. I take one last look at the menu and can’t help myself. I order a serve of the Zen chicken nuggets and decide it’s my favourite dish. Its holy trinity of sauces is so good, I wonder if this is what they mean to be at peace with the universe.
After a fine meal, I ascended to heaven at the I’M Hotel, which hosts one of the coolest rooftop bars I have ever seen, Antidote. Can you say jellyfish wall? Yes, a wall that is a tank filled with glowing jellyfish. The only thing perhaps more beautiful than these balletic sea creatures is the panoramic views of Manila.
It takes a few more cocktails before I stumble into the Filling Station on Burgos Avenue. Truth be told, I’m not sure if it’s late or early when I roll into the cafe-bar, but the place seems to be pumping. I look at my watch – it’s 4am. I’ve never seen a venue so busy at that hour.
The Filling Station is struggling with an identity crisis, embodying part 1950s cafe, part pool hall and part rowdy bar. But somehow, it works, creating an atmosphere that sees me losing track of time. It’s the Vegas of restaurants, with its kitchen and bar open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The people around me is a mix of locals, expats and lost tourists, and from the moment I enter I know I’m in for a good time.
The drinks keep coming and, before I know it, a menu is in front of me. I watch the food arrive at tables around me: perfectly cooked burgers and tuna melts reminiscent of those served up at a diner back home in Queens. I figure, as it’s early morning, a classic American-style breakfast fry-up is in order. I don’t know if it was my mindset or over-stimulated taste buds, but the plate of juicy ham steak, sausages, golden fried hash browns and filling beans are served with some of the best scrambled eggs I’ve ever eaten.
As the sun rises, I find myself back at the opulent I’M Hotel. This time I stay a bit closer to the earth at its insanely cool pool bar where you can have anything from mixed drinks to fresh juices. I sit in one of the oversized birdcages suspended over the pool, contemplating a dive that would test my faith in Filipino construction. The glass-bottom pool, which stretches across the entire face of the building, hangs directly over one of the busiest streets in Manila and is one hell of a way to get over a hangover.
Manila has proven itself deserving of a spot in the pantheon of great cities to imbibe and gorge. From inspired modern menus to the powerful flavours of street food, you simply cannot go wrong in this city that never stops.
INGREDIENTS
2 tbs oil
8–10 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbs chopped ginger
6–7 bird’s-eye chillies
8 chicken wings
3 tbs red chilli sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
1½ tbs chilli vinegar
1½ tbs brown sugar
thin strips of green, red and yellow capsicum, to serve
METHOD
Heat the oil in a non-stick wok. Add the garlic, ginger and bird’s-eye chillies
and stir until fragrant. Add the chicken wings and sauté until the wings are browned.
Reduce heat and add chilli sauce, soy sauce, chilli vinegar and brown sugar. Stir so that the wings are fully covered and simmer until the wings are cooked through (about 15 minutes). Add a pinch of salt.
Transfer to a serving plate, garnish with the capsicum strips and serve hot.
If you are a monogamous wine lover – and by that we mean in love with just one region – you are truly missing out. Given how easy it is to quickly travel by air between Sydney, a stone’s throw away from the Hunter Valley, and Melbourne, on the doorstep of the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula, you would be crazy to not experience the flavours and possibilities of all three regions in a wine lovers’ mini-getaway exploring the east coast.
Wine not? The Hunter Valley is known for its hot climate, lighter-bodied reds – think shiraz that resembles a light, low-tannin pinot – and tangy semillons. If you believe chardonnay is out of fashion and not worth your time, think again. The Hunter produces surprisingly light, fruit-driven styles and more traditional but subtle oaky styles, like those delicious, vanilla-like French varieties.
The Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula, meanwhile, are cool climate regions. Again, pinot noir and chardonnay are signature varieties, but with distinct differences. Reds are lighter again, with a fine tannin structure, and the whites, especially the chardonnay, have a brighter, fresher, acid-driven style to them resembling early harvest stone fruits or apple. Again, it’s a fresh, exciting and modern style that’s sure to please.
The Hunter Valley is one of Australia’s best-known wine regions with a fascinating history dating back to the mid-1800s. It will take you around two-and-a-half hours by road if you are leaving from the centre of Sydney (about the same from Sydney airport), but it’s certainly worth it.
While you can get there and back in one day, with enough time for some wine tasting and lunch, most Sydneysiders know the best way to experience the Hunter is at a leisurely pace. Drive there, enjoy all the wine it has to offer, then make the return the next day. With great accommodation options on offer – hostels, caravan parks, country cottages on Airbnb, luxury resorts – there is definitely something for everyone.
The area boasts more than 150 wineries and produces more styles of the good stuff than you could possibly drink in a lifetime. Head to some of the 45-plus cellar doors open to the public, mostly in the Pokolbin area.
With so much to choose from it really makes sense to look into joining a tour with a local guide. The cellar doors and attractions are quite spread out and can be tricky to navigate since phone and GPS reception can be patchy. Whether you are after an experience that focuses on wineries or would prefer a snapshot that also includes craft breweries and distilleries creating vodka and liqueurs, you will find a variety of tour options to tempt.
If you are short on time, here are a few options showcasing the best of the region.
Capercaillie Wines
You won’t find a warmer welcome or more knowledgeable sommeliers than at Scottish-inspired Capercaillie Wines. You’ll find it hard to walk away without a delicious dry rosé with candy-like notes of strawberries and cream or a medium-bodied chardonnay that brings to mind a vanilla custard. Try the Shimmering Chambourcin, a sparkling, slightly sweet red with hints of maraschino cherries and black forest cake.
Ernest Hill Wines
On Pokolbin Hill, you’ll find Ernest Hill Wines, steeped in family tradition and a passion for the grape. Father-and-son team Ross and Jason Wilson make the wine that has captured the hearts and the palates of many a wine fan and visitor to the area. The Chicken Shed Chardonnay – don’t say it too fast after a few wines – has a lightly oaked character with melon hints and, of course, is perfect with chicken. The Cracklin’ Rosé has distinct cherry notes rather than the usual strawberries and cream, but the real treat is the family’s dessert wines. Their Luna Rouge and Luna Spark are distinct from most dessert wines thanks to their only slightly sweet character – neither is thick or syrupy – and slight carbonation. Sometimes you even get a surprise pop when you open the bottle.
Wandin Wines
At the top of one of the most picturesque hills in Lovedale, overlooking the endless rows of vines and a troop of kangaroos, you will find Wandin Wines‘ cellar door and restaurant. One of the most exciting aspects of dining here is you can combine a tasting experience and lunch. The tasting-plates lunch features four chef-selected, mini versions of the mains paired to four of the winery’s drops, with an introduction from a sommelier at the commencement of your meal. Finish off with a glass of gorgeous pink moscato in the cellar door.
Victoria’s Yarra Valley wine region sits only 51 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD, making it the perfect destination for a wining and dining day trip. The region features some of the country’s most-awarded wineries, distilleries, breweries, dairies and restaurants.
Yileena Park
Carved into a hillside at the base of the Christmas Hills is inviting Yileena Park. With its endless views over the Steels Creek mountain range and one of the warmest welcomes in the valley, you’ll fall in love with the wines and atmosphere of this humble cellar door. You’ll find a premium selection of drops here, most of which are aged for a minimum of four years before release, with the reserve range aged for six years before becoming available at the cellar door. There’s also a delicious assortment of treats available for purchase, including olives, cheese, mustard and olive oil, all of which have been smoked using old oak wine barrels.
Trattoria d’Soumah
Authentic Northern Italian cuisine – that’s what the kitchen at Trattoria d’Soumah creates for its returning guests. With a menu that’s designed to suit every taste – choose from the likes of vegetarian orecchiette, duck ragu tagliatelle, swordfish caponata and slow braised lamb – it’ll be hard to tear yourself away from the table. For something more casual, there’s also a great selection of delicious wood-fired pizza. The captivating views over the vineyard can be enjoyed from every corner of the restaurant, making it an ideal spot to while away an afternoon.
Only 70 kilometres from the city of Melbourne, the Mornington Peninsula isn’t as well known to out-of-towners as the Yarra Valley, but it’s just as good. In fact, it’s the place to be for Melbourne-based food and wine enthusiasts. The added bonuses here are the beaches and rugged coastline, so you can take in some of the sights and really make a day of it.
Ocean Eight
Heading down the driveway to the immaculately landscaped property at Ocean Eight, you know you’re in for a treat. The manicured vineyards and perfect English garden are the envy of other wineries on the peninsula. The cellar door, winery and underground barrel room are custom built to produce the best wines and experience. The wines here are equally as amazing with a premium range of the Mornington Peninsula’s staple classics: pinot gris, chardonnay and pinot noir. These are some of the best wines on the Mornington Peninsula, so they aren’t cheap, but it’s so worth taking a souvenir from your day home.
Merricks Creek
Driving into this property, beneath the willows draped over the driveway, you come out from the shade and into one of the most beautifully secluded vineyards on the peninsula. The winemakers here are fanatical about their pinot noir and it shows in the range of small batch, single vineyard wines. It’s a real family affair at Merricks Creek, with father and son as the winemakers and front-of-house team, and mum and aunty in the kitchen creating small plates to perfectly match the wines. The food here is an undiscovered gem and one of our favourite spots to dine. There’s a great range starting with cheeses, pates and terrines, moving onto hot dishes like slow-cooked lamb and meatballs, and finishing with some delicious desserts, including a crowd-pleasing deconstructed tiramisu.
These suggestions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the possibilities when you visit the Hunter Valley, Mornington Peninsula or Yarra Valley. So don’t count your future travel bucket list as full until you include an east coast Aussie wine adventure in the mix. Your tastebuds will thank you for it.
This feature is sponsored by Tastes of the Hunter Wine Tours and Wine Compass, but we know you love a tipple as much as we do, so we thought you’d like it.
WHERE Dominica
WHY Dive into blue Caribbean waters and be dwarfed by some of the largest animals in the ocean.
Those teeth, as big as they appear, are harmless, regardless of what you may have read in Moby-Dick. The huge boxy heads hold brains that weigh nine kilograms. Sperm whales are the largest of the toothed whales, but there’s no need to be afraid of them – unless you’re a squid. Unlike in most parts of the world, the approximately 300 sperm whales who live off the West Indies island of Dominica do not migrate. Instead they can be found here year round. To ensure they aren’t troubled by too many people in the water, the Dominican Fisheries Division issues only a handful of licenses to swim with them each year. There are rules, too: don’t touch, don’t splash as you get in, don’t swim at the whales, don’t get in their way. But as you slip into the water, the sound of your heart thundering in your head, you might find yourself frozen in awe.
Natural World Safaris runs seven-day expeditions to find these big, inquisitive mammals. Group sizes are limited to four, and guests are accompanied by specialist guides and renowned underwater photographers, who’ll capture every incredible moment.
WHERE Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
WHY It’s not just the Middle East being transformed by oil revenue. The capital of Turkmenistan is spectacularly OTT.
We’re the first to admit you’re probably not heading to Central Asia to check out the club scene, but at some point you’re going to have to come out of the mountains and/or desert and to not hit Ashgabat would be criminal. The whole place is a monument to excess. If Kath and Kim had untold gas and oil riches, they might come up with something similar. Huge boulevards are lined with extravagant marble buildings. Gold-domed palaces stand watch over perfectly manicured gardens. Monuments are lit by neon, and enormous fountains spray water skywards. No one is really sure who all this is for, since the streets seem to be deserted most of the time. And tourists? Fuggedaboudit. Five times more people visit North Korea each year than Turkmenistan. If you happen to find yourself there – you’ll either need to be with a tour group or apply for a five-day transit visa that can take up to six weeks to come through – remember this is a country that is culturally conservative, so expect to spend some of your time with border guards and be careful where you point your camera. Other than that, you’re likely to be greeted with wide-eyed wonder and a shot of vodka by the country’s people.
WHERE Cape Verde
WHY Feel as though you’re conquering the high seas on this restored schooner while exploring this group of 10 islands, 600 kilometres off the coast of Senegal.
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to hoist the sails and yell, “Aye aye, Captain!” as the wind pushes you past rugged isles and into port, you need to book a berth on the Oosterschelde. This three-mast topsail schooner was built in a Netherlands shipyard in 1917 and for the following seven decades transported cargo in the Baltic Sea. In 1988, she was bought by Captain Dick van Andel, who restored the ship to its former glory. Since 1992, the Oosterschelde has been moving passengers across the world.
Cape Verde is one of its regular destinations, with passengers picking up the vessel in Palmiera on Ilha do Sal before hitting the high seas for 11 days. For each day spent sailing, the next is dedicated to exploring one of the islands with local guides. You’ll get a chance to meet people fighting to maintain their traditional way of life, walk into a volcanic crater, visit shipwrecks on deserted beaches, shop in markets, eat at local cafes and dance to Cape Verdean music. It’s a part of the world visited infrequently by tourists – some islands, like Sāo Nicolau, rarely welcome visitors, while Boa Vista is developing an industry and its attendant infrastructure – so you’ll definitely feel as though you’re seeing the real side of this island nation.
During days on board, everyone is expected to chip in with navigating, steering and trimming the sails. If you’ve got a head for heights, you can even climb the mast to look at the world from the yard. The ship is fitted out comfortably, with plenty of space to gather for games and chats in the evening, and the cook provides three hearty meals a day.
WHERE South of Kwatamang, Guyana
WHY You’ve never really got over your fascination with Indiana Jones, and dropping out, even if only for a week or so, seems like the best idea you’ve heard in forever.
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, there’s not a single lion. There’s no wifi or phone signal either. But there is adventure waiting at every turn. Climb into a dug-out canoe and head out on the river or lake looking for giant otters, jaguars, monkeys, giant armadillos, pumas, anacondas and more. Further upstream, where the jungle is uninhabited, the animals have no fear of man. The bird watching is epic (125 species in two days – tick!). You can also hike through the jungle and up nearby mountains for inspiring views of the forest, or hit the river to see if you can hook one of the famed arapaima, a fish that grows to 180 kilograms and is one of the closest living creatures to a dinosaur left on Earth. Of course, if you do, you’re going to release it straight away.
That’s what’s in store at Rewa Eco-lodge, run by a small Amerindian community at the point where two great rivers, the Rewa and Rupununi, meet. The village of 300 people is just next door, and guests can visit to witness life in the jungle.
There are just five self-contained cabins and two benabs (traditional rooms with shared facilities), although guests do sometimes string up a hammock at the main lodge. There’s enough power to charge your camera and run the lights, but not much else – the water for your shower, for example, is heated by the sun. It’s a long way from just about everything, which means you’re going full nature froth.
WHERE Ouidah, Benin
WHY To witness the fascinating commemoration of the estimated 60 million people who lost their freedom during the African slave trade.
Ouidah has a devastating past. For 60 years, from the end of the seventeenth century, millions of West African people were captured and traded from its port to Europe and the Middle East. These days the population of about a hundred thousand swells during January when visitors come from as far away as France and the Caribbean to take part in the Ouidah Voodoo Festival, or Fête du Vodoun.
Eighty per cent of the population of Benin practises the traditional religion, which has an intricate system of beliefs involving folk medicine, songs and stories, spirits called loa who are responsible for different parts of life and, most importantly, the existence of a universal spirit.
Each year the voodoo festival begins on 10 January, with crowds dressed mainly in white arriving on the beach near the Door of No Return to pay tribute to the most powerful wizards. The different communities beat drums, sing and dance, some of them reaching a trance state. People wearing masks created from skins and fabric and decorated with shells roam the streets. The Zangbeto dress in huge colourful straw skirts that cover their entire body. Unsurprisingly, there are also sacrifices of goats and chickens to the spirits, which can be confronting, but when it comes to fascinating celebrations it’s hard to beat.
WHERE Taiwan’s east coast
WHY There’s no better way to see this spectacular landscape than by taking your time on a bike.
Imagine cycling down from the Toroko Gorge towards the Pacific Ocean. The wind is in your hair, the bike is coasting and you haven’t a worry in the world. On this six-day ride that begins in Taipei and finishes in Taitung, you’ll cruise through the rice paddies and orchards of the East Rift Valley, stop at villages for seafood feasts and relax with a swim at Sanxiantai Island’s almost deserted beaches after crossing the eight-arch Dragon Bridge.
The best part is you don’t have to do anything on this trip except book your flights and start pedalling, because a new addition to the line-up at Grasshopper Adventures is its self-guided cycling tours. They supply the bikes, including an e-bike if you’re worried about stamina, and organise accommodation. You’ll be linked to an app that highlights points of interest and places to eat along the way, offers podcasts on regions you’ll pass through, and provides spoken glossaries of commonly used words and phrases. The crew will even transfer your bags from one hotel to the next, so all you need carry is the essentials.
All up, you’ll cover 270 kilometres on sealed roads, some with designated bicycle lanes, during your stay.
WHERE Zakouma National Park, Chad
WHY It’s time to take your big five obsession to Africa’s central north.
In many of the continent’s most popular national parks you’ll see as many safari vehicles as leopards. Not if you head to Zakouma, which was declared a national park in 1963 but then ransacked by poachers in the 2000s. In the past decade, however, it has been a huge conservation success story. Elephants were nearly extinct here, but now there’s a thriving population of almost 600, and the park is home to a huge number of buffalo and more than 50 per cent of Africa’s Kordofan giraffe population. Twitchers will be beside themselves: tens of thousands of birds, particularly black-crowned cranes, flock around the pans. It’s a huge tract of land covering more than 3,000 square kilometres, which means you possibly won’t see the resident pride of lions, but there are plenty of leopards, cheetahs and hyenas to make up for it. The trick is to time your visit right: aim for March or April when wildlife tends to congregate around waterholes. There are only two small camps here, but that is sure to change as more travellers become aware of this wildlife wonderland.
WHERE Whistler, Canada
WHY Freedom is the key to any great adventure, and this bit of kit takes it to the next level.
The trouble with trying to find ski trails that aren’t populated with other folks whizzing by is that your boundaries are set by where you have to be at the end of the day – ie, the resort. Not any more. Doug Washer of Head-line Mountain Holidays has overcome those restrictions by taking a truck camper and fixing it to a snowcat. It allows guests, film crews and researchers to head out on the Pemberton ice cap – at 325 square kilometres, the largest southernmost ice field – for multiday adventures. “You can’t imagine the views you get from inside the camper looking out the skylight and big windows,” Washer told Truck Camper magazine when he launched the snowcat truck in 2019. “We have watched meteor showers and the stars. It’s one thing to have accommodations somewhere, but there’s nothing like having that kind of luxury along with the ability to travel on the mountains and ice.”
Guides on snowmobiles accompany the snowcat, as do chefs. There’s use of a helicopter, and you can choose to explore ice caves, head off on snowshoes or board down untouched slopes. Of course, this kind of adventure doesn’t come cheap, but when you’re out on the ice, with no one else for miles around, the feeling of solitude can’t be equalled.
WHERE Alaska, USA
WHY Because there’s no better way to conquer the Last Frontier than on an old school bus.
The wheels on the bus go round and round and round and round… For an entire 20 days, as you and your new besties explore the northwest state from top to bottom on Infinite Adventures’ Alaska Salmon Run Trip. Cruise Seaward looking for orcas and humpbacks. Watch for bears in Hope. Explore Anchorage by bike. Sleep beneath the stars at Maclaren River Lodge. Kayak past icebergs in Valdez.
In between you’ll chill out in a cool old bus that’s been completely retrofitted for comfort – individual seats rather than benches, overhead lockers for your stuff, tables for playing cards or writing in your journal, big windows, overhead lights and a platform on top that’s perfect for when you’re on grizzly watch. Sometimes you’ll stay in hostels or at campsites, and there are even a couple of nights spent glamping.
WHERE Los Llanos Orientales, Colombia
WHY You wanna be a cowboy, but Texas doesn’t cut it any more.
While distance can equal tyranny, in the case of Colombia’s eastern plains it – well, distance and a little problem with cartels – has preserved not just pristine wilderness but also a way of life that may have been lost had tourism not come to a standstill in the 1990s.
Llaneros are Colombian cowboys, and they move the 12 million or so cattle that live on the plains from place to place throughout the year to avoid the floodwaters that turn much of the landscape into a huge lake. They’re not just horsemen either. They’ve got a rep for being incredibly tough – due to the part they played in a surprise attack led by Simón Bolivar and José Antonio Paez when they defeated the Spanish in 1819 – but they have unique customs too, including eating chiguire (capybara), competing in rodeos called coleo, and dancing the joropo to music played on a harp, the maracas and a cuatro (small guitar).
If this all sounds like a fairly rarefied existence, now imagine this lifestyle but surrounded by incredible wildlife. Because of the varied terrain – rivers, wetlands, savannas, forests – the region is home to giant anteaters, capybaras, howler monkeys, pink dolphins and more than 350 species of birds, from jabirus to red-bellied macaws.
At Corocora Camp, located in a remote private reserve, you’ll spend time with the llaneros learning how to lasso, drive cattle and communicate with your horse. There’s also the chance to explore the plains on horseback, join conservationists working with pumas, ocelots and jaguars, safari in a 4WD or canoe, and take part in a traditional mamona barbecue complete with singing and dancing.
WHERE Mentawai Islands, Indonesia
WHY Lack of crowds, amazing snorkelling, local villages to explore and epic waves. We’ll be off then.
It’s hard to believe this cluster of palm-fringed islands off the coast of Sumatra hasn’t been absolutely overrun by the holiday hordes. Or maybe it’s not so difficult to understand when you check out the route to get there. The closest airport is Padang and, unless you fork out for an exxy private speedboat charter, there’s a ferry crossing that leaves early in the morning but only on certain days. Depending on the weather, it takes about four hours to arrive.
But you know what they say about the journey, and it’s well worth it when you get to the other end. Nearly everywhere in the Mentawais is geared to surfers, who seem to be the only folks on the planet clued into this magical setting. And they’ve certainly got it good. Places like Kingfisher Resort on Sipora Island have a maximum of 10 guests at a time in traditional ‘uma’-style bungalows fitted out with everything you need, including air-conditioning, nice bathrooms and a big balcony with hammock, chairs and ocean views. Even if you’re a beginner surfer, you should be able to jump on Lance’s Left (named after Australian surfer Lance Wright, who found it), and there are another nine breaks all within easy reach of the resort. If surf isn’t as important to you, you’ll find March to mid-April and November less crowded, so you can concentrate on the island’s other adventures. You’re never very far from a white sand beach and a reef teeming with hard and soft coral, fish, clams and turtles. Borrow a bike and ride around the island, discovering beaches as you go, or trek into Sipora’s jungle interior and visit local villages. The resort staff can also organise yoga classes, massages or the chance to spend some time with a local woodcarver learning a bit about the craft and having a crack yourself.
You can either organise a trip yourself and book direct with the resort or try an operator like World Surfaris, based in Queensland, who can do all your travel arrangements for you.
Those contemplating a longer visit and searching for something out of the ordinary can stay with a family of Mentawai tribespeople, who live a traditional semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer existence on the largest of the islands, Siberut. One guide, Eru Mamak, comes highly recommended and offers tours that run from five days to 11. Head off on a river canoe then trek to reach the uma (tribal house). For the rest of your time, you’ll be part of the community, helping to cook, learning to make tools and joining the shaman as he collects plants and herbs and hunts for wild pigs and monkeys. This is one island experience you won’t ever forget.
WHERE The Caucasus, Georgia and Armenia
WHY This is one of the newest hiking trails in the world, and it’s already attracting the attention of trekkers everywhere.
If trekking some of the most remote and beautiful regions of Europe is an appealing proposition, it’s time to get out a map and start planning. Very few feet have trampled the already-completed paths of the Transcaucasian Trail, which, when finished, will connect for 3,000 kilometres through Georgia, Armenia and eventually Azerbaijan. The trails, which have been constructed by volunteers, are still a bit rough, but it’s well worth muddying your boots to experience. The landscape is compelling – Dilijan in Armenia is referred to as Little Switzerland – but it’s the people you meet along the way, most of whom aren’t used to seeing travellers, who’ll make this a hike to remember. At the moment, you’ll likely choose to explore one of three areas in Armenia – South Syunik, Dilijan National Park or Vayots Dzor – or Upper Svaneti in Georgia. The organisation that has been creating the trail offers the chance to hike with those who’ve been hard at work. You’ll get the chance to hear their stories, learn about the land you’re passing though, give feedback on the trail and contribute to its ongoing development. There are other options, too. You can choose to hike independently, wild camping along the way, or check out the offerings from tour companies like World Expeditions, who provide everything you’ll need, including meals and accommodation in comfortable guesthouses. Guides will take you to the best local sights and fast-track spots that aren’t quite as special. One thing’s for sure… Unless you start making plans for the northern hemisphere summer soon, you might find everyone else arrives before you do.
WHERE Tiwi Islands, Australia
WHY With a new lodge on the scene, it’s now much easier to stay on the lands of the Traditional Owners.
They’re only 80 kilometres from Darwin, but they’ve never been as high as, say, Kakadu on most people’s must-visit lists. Which is a shame, because the Tiwis – there are 11 islands of which two, Bathurst and Melville, are inhabited – offer a genuine Indigenous experience for all who visit. Now, with the opening of Outback Wrangler Matt Wright’s Tiwi Island Retreat, there’s a place where you can kick back on the beach and spend some time with the Tiwi people who have lived on the islands for thousands of years.
For an epic getaway, book early to visit on the weekend of the Grand Final and Art Fair, when visitors come to browse the stunning arts and artefacts in the morning then gather at the footy ground for the main event. If you can’t arrive then, be sure to organise one of the Indigenous arts and culture tours during your trip to Tiwi Island Retreat. You’ll chopper to Wurrumiyanga, take a guided tour of Tiwi Designs, make your own screen-printed T-shirt and visit the old church and museum. Otherwise, there’s plenty of fishing and crabbing to be done, wildlife to be spotted (crocs, turtles, stingrays, dolphins, sharks and birds are all plentiful) and remote waterholes to be swum in.
Once the epicentre of Auckland’s sophisticated nightlife, the past 10 years have not been kind to Queen Street, and it’s now a hollowed-out husk of a place, home to seedy backpacker hostels, souvenir stalls and a lingering sense of unpleasantness. Set your sights elsewhere for the evening – somewhere like K’ Road, perhaps – where you can kick off things with a cheeky sundowner.
K’ Road – or Karangahape Road, to give it its full name – was a once a ridgetop thoroughfare for the original Maori inhabitants of Auckland, which was then known as Tamaki Makaurau, or the place of a thousand lovers.
In the 1970s, however, most of those thousand lovers found their way on to K’ Road, turning it into a notorious red-light district. It wasn’t until bars like Madame George and nearby Coco’s Cantina came to the street that it began to slowly lose the hookers-and-drugs reputation and replace it with some serious fine-dining options.
Madame George is a classy little joint with just the right amount of street smarts to sit comfortably in this edgy district on the fringe of the CBD. The footpath seats are a great place to watch the sun set on the relics of Auckland’s seedier past, while the owner, Pablo, plies you with platters from the seriously eclectic menu and liquor from his latest foray back to his birthplace, Peru. Sample exquisite little dishes like burnt potato and broccoli – much better than it sounds – or ceviche with radishes, then ask Pablo to make you a pisco sour and watch his face light up with joy.
Madame George
40 Karangahape Road
madamegeorge.co.nz
Alright, you’re two cocktails in, feeling sated and have a hankering for the sweetest treat you can find. Hail yourself a chariot and skip over a suburb to the Morningside Precinct.
There you’ll find a tucked-away spot frequented by locals. It’s also home to a tiny working chocolate factory, Miann, which just happens to have a dessert cafe squeezed between sacks of cacao beans and centrifuges that spin rich, heady wafts of chocolate scent into the night.
Start with a hot chocolate. Miann offers these in the same way that vineyards offer wine. You choose a brew from a long list complete with tasting notes and details of beans that have been sourced from different countries then roasted in the factory. Sit back and sip as you watch the busy Oompa Loompas – sorry, normal-sized staff – hard at work, knowing you’ll be ruined for hot chocolates for the rest of your life. Then pick a dessert and prepare to have your mind (and taste buds) blown.
Miann Chocolate Factory
12–16 McDonald Street
miannchocolatefactory.co.nz
But wait? Who’s this? It’s your friend, that hectic travel pal who always arrives late.
Which is fine, of course. Perhaps they were down at the waterfront watching an outdoor movie. Films are shown regularly throughout the summer, projected on the towering concrete silos that are located in the old industrial shipping district. But for now your mate needs to line their stomach. Luckily, Electric Chicken is just around the corner.
This eatery is what Colonel Sanders might have created if he’d started in Auckland, served only free-range chicken and had a penchant for pink and purple neon. To really satisfy your hunger try a double electric sandwich with pineapple, and don’t neglect the homemade natural shakes – the sour lime is a winner. If you want to wet your whistle with something a little more alcoholic, try the cider bar down the lane. Morningcider is the country’s first and only dedicated cidery and you can sample dozens of locally brewed bevs, many of them available on tap.
Electric Chicken
18 McDonald Street
electricchicken.co.nz
Morningcider
16 McDonald Street
morningcider.co
Well, you’ve indulged in some fine food and drinks, watched on as chocolate is made and looked on the bright cider life. So there are only two things left to do to make this a perfect evening: amazing cocktails and reckless dancing.
To make this happen you need to head to Britomart or Ponsonby Road or both. On the way, definitely stop by Satya Chai Lounge, a hidden gem in Sandringham.
Sandringham is Auckland’s Little India, a buzzing stretch of shops and restaurants that, in true Indian form, really comes alive after sunset. The Satya Chai Lounge is a spin-off of the original Satya restaurant, which was the first establishment to introduce South Indian cuisine to the city. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spot, so look for the long alleyway entrance, head right down to the back and spend half an hour soaking up the tealight ambience with a dash of Bollywood hipster. If you fancy a drink, there’s a vast range of craft beers and some super-creative cocktails.
Satya Chai Lounge
515 Sandringham Road
satya.co.nz
Now the serious debauchery begins. Caretaker in Britomart, a revamped portside zone, is your best option for intimate underground cocktails. It’s a New York-style drinking lounge and tends to get busy early on, or at least it feels like it does considering it’s so small. Do yourself a favour here and ignore the drinks list; the best cocktails come from conversations with the bartenders. All you have to say is “I’m really feeling like something with tequila” or “I once had this drink that tasted like a Mars Bar” and they’ll whip you up the tipple of your dreams.
Caretaker
40 Roukai Lane
caretaker.net.nz
If you’re not getting itchy feet by now, there’s something wrong with you, so wander up Ponsonby Road in search of a boogie. A great venue in this upmarket area is Revelry, an unassuming bar that’s often overlooked in favour of its flashier neighbours. Big mistake. Revelry boasts a frequently packed dancefloor and a welcoming, celebratory vibe that once led musician Pink to declare it “the most perfect place in Auckland”.
Revelry
106 Ponsonby Road
revelrybar.co.nz
Perfection never lasts, of course, and by 3am most of Ponsonby Road is shutting up shop. Your best chance at keeping the good times rolling is to go full circle and head back to K’ Road. Walk down from Revelry, thread your way past the karaoke dregs and street corner traders and take refuge at InkBar, a house and techno joint that’s been spinning tunes for ravers since 2001. You can let loose here until they kick you out at 4am – if you manage to last that long.
Inkbar
268 Karangahape Road
facebook.com/InkBar
Minutes later, Daryll returns from a dive clutching a massive red crab. He holds it out to show me, careful to keep his gloved digits away from angry claws. “They could have your finger off,” he grimaces, before releasing the crab back to the deep.
You could eat well off what you can find around the coast of Harris. In fact, local and travelling seafood lovers do. But we’re not here to find dinner. Instead, we’re exploring sites on the North Harris Snorkel Trail.
The trail, created by Daryll, has six sites for locals and tourists to get to know the coast’s unique creatures and underwater landscapes. “We have sea grasses like you’d find in the Caribbean, as well as starfish, urchins and tons of fish,” Daryll had explained before we entered the bracing water. “A lot of people don’t understand why we’d want to snorkel in this water. They think it’s going to be too cold and there’ll be nothing to see. But once they get in, they realise it’s incredible.”
Together the Isle of Harris and the connected larger Isle of Lewis make up one island in the remote Outer Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland. It’s a paradise for hikers, nature lovers, road-trippers and photographers, with glassy lochs, rugged mountains and some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. There are also strange, lunar-like landscapes, some of them used as locations during the filming of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Some of Scotland’s most remarkable wildlife lives here, too, including red deer and, with 13 pairs, the UK’s largest population of golden eagles. The surrounding waters are home to basking sharks, all manner of whales (pilot whales and orcas are here year round, while others – minkes and humpbacks – are seasonal), dolphins, seals and more.
Our Outer Hebrides adventure starts in Glasgow. “Welcome to the Highlands” is written across a blue Scotland flag that greets us as we drive beyond the shores of Loch Lomond and through Glencoe to catch the ferry from Mallaig, on the mainland, to Skye, the largest island in the Inner Hebrides.
We stay overnight in Portree, setting out next morning to explore the rocky pinnacles of the Old Man of Storr and the eerie landscapes of the Quiraing (as seen in Prometheus and the latest version of Macbeth), although mist and rain obscure the view.
While Skye is famous and popular – even during the rain its hot spots are overrun – the Island of Harris and Lewis is sometimes referred to as Scotland’s best-kept secret. We take an afternoon ferry across from Uig to Tarbert, Harris’s tiny capital. As we drive down the east coast of South Harris on the Golden Road, there are noticeably fewer cars and people; the landscape is wilder and more peaceful. There’s natural beauty around every turn, with yellow heather on peaty moorland, inland lochs and small fishing boats resting along the coast. Greylag geese and sheep roam freely along the single-lane road. The remains of abandoned crofts crumble slowly on the hills.
We circle the island’s south tip, stopping at Rodel to climb the spooky tower of fifteenth-century St Clement’s Church then make our way up the west coast, which looks like a different island altogether. Here, the rocky landscapes are replaced by vast white beaches. On famously beautiful Luskentyre we take a walk along the sand as waves crash in off the Atlantic, before driving down the west coast to the Sound of Harris, a luxurious, self-catering house overlooking the wild channel.
At Tarbert the following day, we call in at Harris Distillery, one of the most remote distilleries in Scotland. Having opened in 2015, its first batch of whisky is still a few years off, but its distillers produce a tasty, if pricey, gin using an interesting ingredient: sugar kelp is a kind of seaweed harvested in the local waters. We splash out on a bottle to take with us around the island.
Next morning, we drive to Hushinish Beach on the west coast of North Harris, passing shaggy highland cows, their long golden hair blowing in the wind, along the way. Lambs bleat nervously, clinging to their mothers for protection, as we hike across the grassland, known here as machair, and climb a steep trail up the cliffs. The colour of the sand and the vivid blue ocean from high above makes an incredible picture. Clouds roll by, throwing dramatic shadows onto Scarp, a small island with just a few houses and dilapidated old crofts. The ocean is so clear I can see the rocks deep below the surface.
It’s here we meet Daryll to explore the first site on the snorkel trail. It’s cold, so we pull on six-millimetre wetsuits and hoods to guard against water that’s around 12ºC. In the summer months, Daryll assures me, the ocean around Harris can be bathwater warm, but it’s far from that today – the cold knocks the air from my lungs when I first sink into it. A few minutes later, my body begins to adjust and I enjoy the refreshing swim around the bay. Golden kelp forests and what look like giant ponytails, but are in fact bootlace seaweed, dance below us in the ocean. Huge crabs sidestep along the sand. “It’s a magical landscape,” says Daryll when we surface.
At Seilamol Bay, a short drive away, the water is cooler still, but filled with life. “We’ve got everything here,” says Daryll as he brings a bright purple starfish to the surface to study. “There’s so much to see.” There are more scallops below us, as well as pollock and schools of tiny silver sand eels.
On the drive back to Tarbert, Daryll takes out his binoculars to track a bird gliding along the coast. “That’s a goldie,” he says, pointing out the golden eagle. “Two-point-two-metre wingspan. An adult. A beauty.”
Slightly drier and warmer next morning, we drive from Harris to Scalpay, a tiny island connected by a bridge, for a kayak trip with the Scaladale Centre’s Sean Ziehm-Stephen. “I love living on a little Hebridean island,” Sean tells us, as we paddle out across the open ocean. “The access to the great outdoors is unsurpassed.”
We make our way past rocks and islands filled with nesting gulls and chicks, orange-beaked oystercatchers and Arctic terns. “They’re amazing,” he says of terns. “They have the longest migration of any creature on the planet – from the Arctic to Antarctica and back every year. They stop here to rest.”
On the return leg, we ‘surf’ waves, allowing them to drive us forward, before coming around a corner to find a group of chubby seals on the rocks. Seeing us approach, they roll off their perches and flop one by one into the safety of the ocean. As we quietly float by in the kayaks, their heads start to bob above the surface of the water behind us and to our sides, keeping watch from a safe distance. Curious creatures, they swim with us for half an hour, popping up in inlets and harbours, as we return to shore. It’s good to have their company.
In the afternoon, we drive north through Harris and into Lewis, bright sunlight bringing out the vivid colours of the hills, grasslands and lochs of the epic island.
We head west to the famous Callanish Stones, Neolithic standing stones that are thought to be around 5,000 years old. Their purpose is unknown, but some archaeologists speculate they could be part of an ancient pagan burial site; others believe the design corresponds to an astrological phenomenon.
At Stornoway, the capital of Lewis and far larger than Tarbert, we head to the harbour in the morning to meet Gordy Maclean, skipper with Stornoway Seafari. Snug inside thick flotation suits, we climb on board his RIB and motor gently out of the harbour. Destination? The Shiant Islands.
“The Shiants are a very important place for nesting seabirds,” wildlife guide Sheena Anderson informs us. “Ten per cent, or around 135 nesting pairs, of the UK’s Atlantic puffin population are here. It gets very noisy in the summer. It’s insane.”
Cormorants fly straight as arrows alongside the boat as we skip over the waves at 25 knots. Gordy slows and circles around to watch a pair of harbour porpoises moving through the water. “They’re quite shy and not as playful as dolphins,” Sheena informs us.
Further along, we stop to watch a white-tailed sea eagle, the largest bird of prey in the UK. It lands at its cliff-face nest to rejoin its mate. “We see sea eagles quite often around here,” says Sheena. “They mate for life and use the same nest for generations. They’re incredible birds.”
Reaching the Shiants, we rest at the mouth of a cave at Rough Island. “The Shiant islands are three islands: Rough Island (the largest), House Island and the Island of the Virgin Mary,” Sheena continues. “Rough Island is the highest at 150 metres and it’s all volcanic rock. The formations are very cool.”
Moving slowly, we travel beneath vast dark columns of rock, stained white with guano. The walls are alive and crowded with birds; guillemots, fulmars, kittiwakes, razorbills and cormorants are among them. It’s quite a spectacle.
Further along, seals cover black rocks pounded by waves. We disturb a seal pup sleeping in a sheltered nook. It wakes, blinks a few times and rolls off the rocks into the ocean.
“Now, let’s surf,” Gordy says, as he throttles the engine and speeds around a second island. The sky above us is filled with birds.
A heavy rainstorm batters us as we return to Stornoway Harbour and continues through the afternoon, so we drop plans for a hike on Lewis’ north coast, the UK’s windiest point. Instead, we visit Museum nan Eilean at Lews Castle. Among other relics from Hebridean history, there are several ancient Lewis chessman – detailed little figures carved from walrus tusk by craftsmen in Norway more than 800 years ago – displayed in glass cabinets. The chessmen were found in 1831 in the sand dunes of Uig Bay.
There are large-scale versions of the chessmen around the west of the island, part of the island’s Bealach art project. On a grey afternoon, we drive out to track them down, taking a scenic loop around Valtos, Kneep and Ardroil, beaches that rival Harris’ finest.
It takes us a while to find the King, a tall chess statue on the machair near Ardroil. But once we’ve got our eye in, we tick off art pieces
thick and fast, locating the Berserker outside Uig Community Centre, and the Knight at Abhainn Dearg Distillery in Carnish.
We almost drive past Spring Well, another art piece, by the roadside in Mangersta. It depicts an arm jutting out from the grass bank and pouring spring water from a glass bottle. Across the road, there’s a philosophical road sign pointing in various directions: This Way, That Way, Other Way, Might Have Been, Dead End. The signpost seems a little downbeat and pessimistic to be standing here, because, actually, here on Harris and Lewis, whether it’s an eagle, a highland cow, a mountain, beach or a strange hand reaching out of the ground, you never know what will be around the next corner.
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