6.239 Escargot

6.239

1 (Tue) September 2015

Escargot

1.0

at Club Havannah (Honiara Hotel)

-Honiara-

with colleagues from the country office

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Despite what the name would suggest, Club Havannah is a French restaurant, currently ranked #9 of 17 restaurants in Honiara on TripAdvisor; located in Honiara Hotel.

Mission to the Solomon Islands, Day 3 (see previously 6.238 Marinated Snapper…).

In Honiara.  Flew from Manila via Singapore via Brisbane, arriving yesterday afternoon — 24 hours, door to door.  Today through Thursday, I’ll be helping to facilitate a workshop on national health policy planning. Leaving Friday, back in Manila by Saturday.

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For an appetizer, main course, and  drinks, my share came out to SBD 550 (about USD 70), pricy by any standard (about PHP 3,200, which could buy 3 expensive meals in Manila), unimaginably so for locals, who earn on average around SBD 1,000 a month.

For the main dish, after a couple days of playing long shots that failed to pay out, I played a sure thing in the surf & turf.

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Duo de Boeuf et Langouste (3.25) — the beef is sourced from neighboring Vanuata, regarded by many as having the tastiest beef in the world; tender with a bit of chew, which I prefer to the melt-in-mouth mush of hanwoo (see for example 2.212 Grilled Ggot-Deungsim) or wagyu (see for example 5.143 Good Award Kobe Steak Course), intensely beefy flavor; crayfish, nicely cooked; pepper sauce was a tad salty.
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Salad (3.0) — without this salad, dressed in vinaigrette, the meal would’ve been unbearably heavy; other options were vegetables in butter, fries (“chips”), or mashed potatoes — ugh.

But for the appetizer, I couldn’t resist experimenting with the escargot.

Meh.  The snails were too rinky dink to provide any taste or texture, so each measly bite mostly comprised breadcrumbs in butter.

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