Paua

During our NZ trip, we had a local delicacy Paua. Paua is the Maori name for a species of sea snails. It is similar to abalone, however the taste couldn't be more different. While abalone is sweet, paua tasted like... nothing. It was rubbery, and it tasted nothing like abalone. Perhaps it was the restaurant, or the way it was serve but our Paua eating experience was not the best.

We went to a Thai restaurant on the last night in Kaikoura (I just had to have some Asian, my comfort food after a few straight days of burgers, salads etc). It was strange finding a Thai restaurant in the town when there were no Asians in sight! Including the Asian tourists we saw in the town, the ratio was about 1 Asian to 20 Caucasian.

On the waiter's recommendation, we ordered the Paua salad. The dish had a good combination of tangy flavours to it but the paua slices failed to make it to the party.

Paua salad
Paua shells have lovely swirls of colour. They are also known as sea opals because of the resemblance in colour and are used to make jewellery
Fresh paua

We also ordered the seafood combination stir fried with basil, and the red chicken curry. Gaz liked the seafood stir fry - the sauce was a nice one with basil, sweet and salty. Very tasty.

Stir fried seafood with basil

Red chicken curry

We fiddled around with the camera in the restaurant taking pictures of the food and the waiters thought we were food critics. If we were, then we'd failed miserably because I can't even remember the name of the restaurant!