Tasting Samoa

Today I’m here in Apia, the capital of Western Samoa and I've decided I wanted to try to experience the tastes that the Samoan islands had to offer. After doing some Internet research, I found what seemed to be a great local restaurant to check out. I specifically tried to look for a place that was popular with the locals as to experience what the common people here eat. I wanted to try some dishes I could only perhaps find in here in Samoa. After walking through the town for about 45 minutes (and also through a  nice farmers market), I managed to find the restaurant.

The name of the restaurant was Amanis; a quaint little building on the side of the main road. The parking lot infront was packed with cars, which was a good sign. I walked in and looked at the menu hung above the counter. It consisted of local dishes, fish and chips, burgers and a breakfast menu. They had right in front a large glass heated case where they kept most of the food. I walked over to it and looked at all the different varieties of food. Chicken curry, mixed vegetables, sliced pork, sweet and sour chicken and several local dishes I did not recognize.

A very nice Samoan woman from behind the counter approached me and asked what I would like. In reply, I asked her my two favorite questions in any restaurant that I’m unsure of : “what’s good?!” and also “Which ones are your favorite?” These questions are great for a variety of reasons. They first of all start a playful rapport between you and the server or who ever it might be. This rapport can sometimes lead to them doing extra things for you and also among other things, make sure they don’t fuck with your food. It also narrows down the possibilities when it comes to ordering. If you have no idea what to get, asking them these questions will help you at least weed out their “bad dishes” and let you know what their “good ones” are. The woman smiled after I asked her the questions and pointed out a few of her favorite dishes and one of them she said is a local favorite dish called Palusami, which she explained is onions and coconut cream wrapped in Taro leaves and baked. The consistency looked more like cream spinach but I decided I had to at least try it anyway. I also ordered some sweet and sour chicken and chicken curry with a side of white rice.

At Amanis they charge everything by the scoop and it seemed that when they mean one scoop, it ends up being two because everything thing that I ordered, she gave me a HUGE double scoop portion of it. I sat down on the patio outside and started to dig in.

The first thing I had to try was the Palusami. I reached in with a spoon and took a bite. The first thing you taste is the coconut, a LOT of coconut. It had a nice creamy and rich texture but the coconut was very strong. I went ahead and moved on to the sweet and sour chicken. The taste was a little disappointing. The sauce tasted more like a cleaning detergent more than a sweet and sour sauce. I think I would have preferred the sweet and sour from Panda Express to this to be honest. Lastly, I tried the chicken curry. The curry its self was actually really nice. A nice spicy flavor without overloading your taste buds with too much zing. The downfall of this curry was actually the chicken. Every little bite of chicken was riddled with tiny little chicken bones. I probably spent more time picking bones out of my teeth than I did actually enjoying it.

I then realized that the Palusami was the better of the three dishes so I decided to try to finish that. It was obvious at that point that there was no way I was going to be able to finish the whole plate. Then I realize why the Samoan people are so massive. The portions here are too fucking huge! This would put any McDonalds super size family meal to shame. They probably feed their infants super sized big macs for breakfast and substitute breast milk for a 64oz diet soda before they can even walk!

After getting a few more spoons full of Palusami, the coconut starts to catch up with me. Not in a sickening sort of way, just that I was getting overwhelmed with the coconut flavor. I tried dumping the rice into the Palusami to dilute the flavor, but it did very little in taming the ferocity of the coconut. I finally just gave up on it. I asked the nice woman behind the counter for a to go box (as not to insult the people that I ate maybe only half of the meal) and went on my way.

On the way back I stopped into a farmers market, which they call Marketi Fou where they were selling local food, crafts and “Samoan Pancakes”. The Samoan Pancakes are simply banana bread that they roll up into a ball and deep fry. For 10 cents a pop, I had to at least try a few. I ordered a couple and sat down and tried them. They had a nice crunchy outside (which I expected since they were deep fried) and inside it had a sweet, warm banana flavor on the inside. They tasted very nice, however I think I would of liked to taste a little more of the banana from it. For 10 cents each though, I don’t think I had much room to complain.

"Samoan Pancakes"

            The tastes of Samoa I think are ones that can be truly appreciated by its people. It recipes that have been shared and passed down from grandmothers to granddaughters for generations and is some thing they have grown up on and learned to love. A foreigner like myself however, was not as impressed. I think the local dishes have some unique visions but maybe lack the proper skills for execution. It could have possibly been Amanis’ recipes weren’t good or perhaps it’s both. I’m not sure, but for someone who is just passing through, the food wasn’t a selling point. I’ll leave it next time for the locals