Australian Food
Meat is plentiful, cheap and excellent: steak forms the mainstay of the pub counter meal and of the ubiquitous barbie , or barbecue - as Australian an institution as you could hope to find. Even if no one invites you along to one, you can still enjoy a barbie: free or coin-operated electric barbecues can be found in car parks, campsites and beauty spots all over the country. As well as beef and lamb, you may also find exotic meats , especially in the more upmarket restaurants. Emu, buffalo, camel and witchetty grubs are all served, but the two most common are kangaroo, a rich, tender and virtually fat-free meat, and crocodile, which tastes like a mix of chicken and pork and is at its best when simply grilled. At the coast, and elsewhere in specialist restaurants, there's tremendous seafood too: prawns and oysters, mud crabs, Moreton Bay bugs and yabbies (sea- and freshwater crayfish), lobsters, and a wide variety of fresh- and seawater fish - barramundi has a reputation as one of the finest, but is easily beaten by sweetlips or coral trout. Fruit is good, too, from Tasmanian apples and pears to tropical bananas, pawpaw (papaya), mangoes, avocados, citrus fruits, custard apples, lychees, pineapples, passion fruit, star fruit and coconuts - few of them native, but delicious nonetheless. Vegetables are also fresh, cheap and good, and include everything from European cauliflowers and potatoes to Chinese choi sam and Indian bitter gourds. Note that aubergine is known as eggplant, courgettes as zucchini and red or green peppers as capsicums. Vegetarians might assume that they'll face a narrow choice of food in "meatocentric" Australia, and in the country areas that's probably true. But elsewhere most restaurants will have one vegetarian option at least, and in the cities veggie cafes have cultivated a wholesome, trendy image that suits Australians' active, health-conscious nature.
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