Editor Pick
Cooking In & save on expenses
- November 15, 2003
- Rated 5 of 5 by
bgoshorn from Vallejo, California
Grocery stores kept us away from restaurants charging $24 for an American breakfast and who knows what for dinner. Fresh vegetables are expensive, such as tomatoes, broccoli, and lettuce. Fresh fruits can be purchased from roadside stands. Some fruit stands are a rip-off. Stay away from those close to hotel areas. I found one in Papetoai, in front of a home, where I got a bunch of bananas for $2.00 and fresh papaya for $1. The best bargain on the islands is baguettes of French bread at the local stores. And at $.43, you have the main part of your sandwiches. If you want a plastic bag to carry your bread in, it is $.20. So buy one and bring it back each day. A good-sized avocado was $1.65, a wedge of brie cheese for $2.25, a dozen eggs $3.67. A 2-pound beef steak was about $13.50, and it fed four people a great dinner. Fresh fish at the local fish market at the end of Moorea’s Cook’s Bay in PaoPao (about 1km from the Bali Hai) is very reasonable. A 2-pound chunk of white tuna was about $8.00. Fresh milk is hard to find. Shelf-stable boxed milk is $1.35 a quart. That was enough for a tuna steak dinner, with the leftovers added to our tuna sandwiches the next day. To supplement our diet, we took a suitcase filled with food items, such as large peanut butter, jam, pancake mix, shelf-stable bacon, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce mix, tomato paste, dehydrated cooked hamburger, garden sundried tomatoes, power bars, dried fruit mix, backpacking dinners with chicken or tuna, iced tea mix, canned tuna, canned chicken, mayonnaise, fast-food condiment packages, spices, and gallon ziplock bags.
From journal Scuba Diving in Moorea