This was our next stop. From Soul Food to Samoan Food at Taste of Polynesia.
It's a combination mini-grocery store and sit down eatery. It's not fancy or anything so don't expect china plates, real silverware and linen napkins. This is down home Islander food folks.
The young lady working there was really cool and showed us everything in the steam trays. She didn't even mind me taking photos (I asked politely if I could) and said, "Do whatever you need to do!"! Love it! These were Pork Sausage links and Corned Beef.
These were Turkey Tails and Lamb Ribs.
The one exposed tray had what they call "Sapasui" ("chopsuey"); it was kind of like pancit but with chapchae like noodles. It had slivered carrots and cabbage along with chicken flavored with soy sauce. I liked it but it was a bit too salty for me. TC enjoyed it later for dinner.
These were steamed taro, a staple in Samoan food. Other items in the trays included shoyu chicken, pork chops, fish, and curry chicken.
Fresh bananas and taros were along the back wall.
The girl working there was really patient as she explained Samoan cuisine to us.
I liked the bilingual sign:
There were a couple of cold cases with drinks...
One side of the store had traditional Samoan clothing and a wooden display case with floral hair picks (jasmine flower) and jewelry.
There were shelves full of cream crackers, chips, soy sauce and other items. The other side had shelves filled with canned sardines and corned beef.
This was one of the desserts - Panikeke (fried dough):
This flower shaped one was called Masi Saina - it looked really pretty. These had green onion and garlic filling. It wasn't sweet but kind of heavy tasting. They tasted better warmed up rather than cold.
These chips were "Burger Flavoured" and were from Fiji. I bought a bag and they did not taste like burgers at all. They were really salty and shaped like wagon wheels.
Turns out that we were still full from the chicken and waffle at Annie Belle's. We had the Tongas plate to go (3 items plus a taro). Bert chose the Lamb Rib, the sapasui noodles, and the Turkey Tail which came with this huge taro half. The taro serves as the starch and it didn't really have much of a flavor. Bert liked it more than I did while TC didn't like it at all. (I took this food shot while at PubCakes)
While it was really fatty, we liked the turkey tail. I wished we got more than one of those. TC ended up finishing it off. I had more of the noodles because I don't really like lamb. We want to try the other items on their menu like the chicken and the fish. So next time, we will actually sit down and eat here...
Our next stop, dessert at PubCakes...
