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.
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.
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.
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.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.
