Traveling to New Zealand, need food recommendations

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.

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 )

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

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.

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.

bump

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 !

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!!!!!