Auckland, New Zealand
So ends the Great Kiwi Road Trip. Now after all that driving, Who’s hungry!?
As we’ve already mentioned, there is a ton of amazing food in this country. European food, Asian food, and of course all types of seafood. One of the local specialties is the New Zealand Green Lipped Mussels. We found a place downtown called Squid Row where we could get a kilo of these awesome things for NZD$21. If you see them, you should try some. They’re great!
Also, remember the Sky Tower? Well if you want to have the highest tea in the southern hemisphere (because, remember, we judge things that way apparently) they put on a pretty good spread.
They are also into burgers here. There was one local chain that we just absolutely fell in love with – Burger Fuel! They have wonderful gourmet burgers in all sorts of sizes and combinations, from veggie burger to chicken or beef. Tiffany’s favorite was the El Camino(!) which was a very tasty combo of beef burger with cheese, guacamole, refried beans and cheese Doritos. It was the best Mexican food we’ve had since we left Mexico! And you can get it with sweet potato fries on the side which are clutch!
Since their burgers are so large and messy, they helpfully provide a “Doofer” for you to use. Not sure what that is? Watch the video for doofer utilization:
Oh, and they do the strangest things here! Like put meat in a pie… A pie! It’s crazy, 9 times out of 10 if you ask for a pie, it will not be a sweet pie like pumpkin or apple, it will be a savory pie with sausage or ground beef in it! You’re supposed to eat them with ketchup (or as they call it over here “tomato sauce”). It’s just so weird!
Unfortunately our culinary adventures were not all successful, and we learned one very important lesson…
Other random food notes:
- There is a Dunkin Donuts in downtown Auckland.
- There is not a Dunkin Donuts in San Francisco, or most of California, for that matter.
For further gastronomical explorations check out what they eat in Tahiti!
Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures. If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!
Good article about food in New Zealand. Especially all the meat pies. You can also harvest the mussels without needing a licenses…So with a little sweat-equity you can get a bucket of mussels for free.
Keep up the good reads!
Thanks for the advice! We’ve been having a blast tasting the amazing food from NZ. 🙂
As you know I thought the mussels were “killer”