Traveling to New Zealand, need food recommendations

pattyriggs

Kiwi MFPers,

I will soon be traveling to NZ's South Island and spending approximately 14 days taking in the sights, sounds, and yes FOOD. I am unfamilar with New Zealand's cuture and cusine and would like to know what expect foodwise. What are the can't miss and definetly avoid foods? Also, how easy will it be to track my food in MFP as we will be eating out most of the time?

SilverOnTheTree

Hi!

Wow, I'm kind of surprised that this doesn't have more replies. Since I actually live here and shop in the supermarkets for whatever I fancy, I'm a bit out of touch. However...

NZ, particularly in the South Island, has a distinct bent towards traditional English farmhouse food: think roast lamb, meat pies, fruit puddings. The south in particular is farm country, and it's worth investigating local produce. Over the last 20 years, we've had increasing waves of Asian and Pacifica peoples immigrating (it's great!), which has livened things up considerably. You'll be able to find "healthy junk food" in all the main towns (sushi, fresh salads, pita pockets, smoothies). Things will get a little more difficult in smaller towns, where eating out means "carbs and lots of them" - pizza, pasta, bar food. Happily, the main tourist trails do carry alternatives.

Most motels include a small amount of cooking equipment, and hot drinks, including a jug of fresh milk.

FOOD DIARY
It's going to be difficult to enter casual restaurant meals. All the chain stores (from St Pierre's sushi to Pita Pit) are available on the general search function. It's often useful to add "nz" or "aus" in the search box to get our local variant. There are many NZ MFPers, so if you shop at a supermarket, search by brand name and you should find it pre-loaded. For healthy-ish chains, I recommend the Pita Pit salad/bread takeaways and Tank juice bars.

Things to ENJOY while you're here (if you can fit the calories in):
fish'n'chips with tomato sauce, eaten on the beach (I suggest you do this in Christchurch at New Brighton or Sumner, where it's warmer) but be aware, it's CALORIFICALLY bad
fabulous wines, especially the whites
fresh stone fruit (apricots, peaches, plums) especially while in Otago. You don't need to buy at the supermarket if you're driving country roads. Just keep $5 cash on hand and watch for roadside stalls with an honesty-box.
hazelnuts, likewise
gourmet meat pies - this may sound insane, but it's the thing Kiwis miss most when overseas
Bluff oysters are justifiably famous but unfortunately, they were off-limits last year due to fishery management. I'm not sure whether they're back
Oamaru cheeses - the Whitestone brand in particular
My personal favourite: the feijoa fruit, aka pineapple guava. ("Fee - joe - ah") Green, the size of a lemon, ripe when slightly squishy to the touch: slice it in half & scoop out the flesh with a spoon. Delicious. Often found in smoothie mixes.

DIFFERENCES
Our bread doesn't contain nearly as much sugar as American brands; on the other hand, our dairy products contain more fat (and more milk solids etc due to happy cows eating grass outside all day) so be careful with dairy and pastry. There's no modified corn syrup, it's all white sugar, which changes the taste of many things (soda pop in particular). We are pretty fussy about coffee, and it's never a good idea to insult the barista (even when you don't like their blend). We have some weird local pronunciations of things like 'ciabatta' - if in doubt, point and smile :P

Portion sizes are smaller than the States, which makes life easier (this is especially noticeable at chain stores like McDonald's); restaurants are happy to provide doggy-bags if you accidentally over-order. We don't really do Yelp; the Lonely Planet guides are quite reliable though.

NAMES OF FOOD
bun: any kind of bread roll, large or small
biscuits: cookies
scones: similar to biscuits
jam: jelly
jelly: the gloppy dessert made from gelatine
chips: fries OR wedges OR crisp tortilla chips OR packaged potato crisps
take-aways: any food purchased for consumption off-site
kai: Maori word for food
kai moana: sea food

Whew! I'm not sure what else to add. Hopefully some in-the-know South Islanders will join in here.

gemmaleigh1989

Definitely go to ferg burger in Queenstown! AMAZING! definitely worth going over your calories for lol.

fruity2

I was going to post a lengthy reply, but after reading SilverOnTheTr's post, pretty much everything is covered. One good thing, you can drink water out of the tap, sounds silly, but at least you know you can fill your water bottle up with tap water (depends on what you prefer of course).

I don't think you need to worry too much. It sounds like you are in for a nice holiday. South Island is beautiful.

You could try marmite (due out in March), our wines, fresh fruit, lamb, seafood. If you want you can add me to your friend list and check out my diary.

Good luck and have fun. Hope you take plenty of pics )

nz_deevaa

Food in NZ is amazing and varied.

You'll love it.

Seafood is super fresh. If you eat out (and I recommend you do!) , you'll find serving sizes aren't as big in the USA, but the food you'll get on your plate will be lovely and seasonal.

In Kaikoura, buy crayfish from the road side stalls. Or mussels.

Try kumera and feijoas. Coffee is surprisingly good in NZ.

melissarina

Wow, Silveronthetree has summed it up!

I'm an Aussie, I went to NZ over the Christmas/New Year break, and I have to say, it's a lovely place to visit, I hope you have a great day. I couldn't believe how friendly everyone was! The seafood was amazing - so fresh! We found it pretty easy to eat well, and when we indulged, we just did more walking!

Enjoy your holiday

sunman00

did 8 weeks in NZ, loved it!!

fish & chips is their national dish, fab

they advertise 'whitebait' everywhere; great in UK, garbage in NZ, flakes of white fish in bland scrambled eggs, give it a big swerve :-)

oh, and drive the West coast of the South Island, world class

dillydally123

oh man i never ate as well as when I was in NZ.
The Asian food is freakin amazing so much unreal fresh fish deliciousness. I think I had some of the best food i've ever eaten in a Vietnamese restaurant in Christchurch. There's also way more widely available vegetarian and vegan food than in Ireland. I found it so easy to eat well there while I was traveling around. enjoy.

mytman

Kiwi MFPers,

I will soon be traveling to NZ's South Island and spending approximately 14 days taking in the sights, sounds, and yes FOOD. I am unfamilar with New Zealand's cuture and cusine and would like to know what expect foodwise. What are the can't miss and definetly avoid foods? Also, how easy will it be to track my food in MFP as we will be eating out most of the time?

hi we will look forward to welcoming you to the land of the long white cloud (New Zealand),

I live here and the food is amazing and is the best in the world in my un bisas opinion. make sure u check out the beaches and rivers and the bush walks are absolutly amazing. I live in Nelson and the beaches are the best and should still be quite warm

Have fun and enjoy

myofibril

I spent about 3 weeks in NZ over Christmas and New Year.

The coffee is a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

The quality of produce is great as well, particularly the fish (hmmmm white bait) Get some decent steaks, mussels, lamb, fish, kumara and salad together, get the BBQ fired up and enjoy.

Love NZ, love the people. One of the greatest countries on Earth.

Enjoy.

castadiva

I grew up there, and would like to add a huge WOOOT for the feijoa - those, I miss! Harrods apparently has them for one or two weeks of the year...at about £5/fruit!

Very easy to eat clean in New Zealand - masses of fantastic fruit & vegetables, sea food, and meat, and many fewer artificial additives. Small towns are likely to be trickier for variety and 'healthy fast food', as Silveronthetree says, but you should still be able to find good produce and meat pretty much wherever you are.

Do go and have fish and chips on the beach, out of newspaper, with tomato sauce - that's something else I miss and an experience that I haven't been able to replicate anywhere else to the same standard of deliciousness! If you want to indulge a little, try a proper Pavlova (a dessert made of meringue, whipped cream and fresh fruit), or some cheese from Kapiti.

StefieLou

bump

nz_deevaa

or some cheese from Kapiti.

....I second Kapiti cheese Aorangi in particular. Yum.

And Kapiti ice-cream. *drool*

It's the happy cows you know.

Kailee360

Another mention for their great Coffee , not sure about the Cinnamon option instead of Chocolate on a Cappuccino , but you can choose what you want .

And Lolly Cake !

mwfaith1971

You could try marmite (due out in March),

I though you had Vegemite, like us across the sea.

joddumz

I lived on the south island for a year -- the food in new zealand is great, there is a lot of fresh stuff and its cheap!! its quite english type food so i found it easy to make comparrisons and there are good big supermarkets so you should be able to manage.

As mentioned their seafood is really good, and lots of fresh lamb and beef delicious.

New Zealand is very hilly and we always spent a LOT of time out walking and climbing so this should offset any calories???

Enjoy!!!!!