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Cook Islanders sure know how to cook! Gastronomic delights abound here - and visitors should sample them all.
There are many types of places to choose to eat from in Rarotonga with restaurants ranging from top class cosmopolitan style eateries to friendly takeaway bars, funky island-style cafes and even ethnic restaurants (Italian and other European foods, Asian, Thai, Cajun/Creole and Mexican).
The hugely popular Umukai is the traditional Polynesian feast and is prepared in an underground earth oven where food is wrapped in leaves and then steamed over hot stones.
The flavour of foods cooked in an Umukai is just delicious and meat especially is superbly tender.
Seafood, as you would expect, features highly in island menus. Tuna, Mahi Mahi (dolphin fish) and Parrot fish are most popular.
Try a gourmet marlin-steak sandwich, or curried octopus (an island specialty). One island dish not to miss is raw fish marinated in lime juice and mixed with coconut cream. Another speciality of the island is the fresh crayfish.
Very few places in the world can offer you a delicacy of this calibre for the prices normally charged here.
Along with fresh fish and vegetables, visitors should sample the tantalising tropical fruits. Island fruits are absolutely beautiful. Pineapples in particular are juicily sweet, as are the pawpaws and the mangoes.
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Even if you don't try the fruit at night, you will find pineapples, pawpaw (papaya) and bananas make a delicious breakfast - try an all-fruit smoothie! Sample other traditional local foods such as eke (octopus), rukau (spinach-like taro leaves), kumara (sweet potato) and poke (pawpaw pudding).
Visitors should also seek out the unique breadfruit and taro, tried plain or in one of the myriad of ways the Cook Islanders prepare them to enhance their flavours.
Coconuts grow all year round, and the cream from grated coconut flesh is used in many island dishes.
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