Visiting Lautoka for provision and checking out a botanical garden

Lautoka is the second largest city on the big island of Fiji (behind Suva) and has the best grocery options for staples. So to the road we went. It took a few hours and soon we were parked next to the city market (closed on Sunday) and headed to the Extra market where we located many of the hard to find items (nuts, seeds, good peanut butter, quinoa, rolled oats, and the like). After spending way more that expected, we looked for a restaurant for lunch. Again, being Sunday, not much was open.

We ended up at Mumbai Dhaba. In the front window the chef made a crepe’ish dish stuffed with veggies. Looked interesting, so that is what I went with. It was huge and tasted great but I went very light on the side sauces. I’m pretty good with medium spice, which these clearly were not.

After filling up it was back towards Nadi, where we turned off the road towards Garden of the Sleeping Giant botanical garden. It felt good to get some exploring and hiking arounds their beautiful grounds. At a lookout we had a wonderful view of the Nadi valley and out into the sea.

It was pretty late by the time we made it back to the hotel, we wandered back down to the Beach bar and grill for dinner. With no booking (reservation) we were shuffled away for a bit before given a seat at the bar. That worked. Deciding I’d had enough seafood I ordered the lamb shank which was crazy good. Fall off the bone, moist meat. So good I needed two beers to wash it down.

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