Tonga

My favorite food tended to be some of the more weird stuff. We ate a lot of horse, a lot of funny seafood, sea turtle probably most notably. We ate a lot of dog. So I think that kind of ended up being my favorite because it was unusual. Other than that, I think the normal food tends to be manioc, which if you look up cassava or if you've ever had that before, it's like a kind of a starchy potato type root that they have over there. And honestly, most of the time food ends up being pretty bland. They're not about super spicy or super sweet food. So anything weird to kind of break the monotony of the fish and chicken is always welcome. I'd say my favorite food ended up being what's called loihosi, which is a way they cook horse.

Everything was just so good. They don't use a lot of seasonings, but everything was really good. Mainly because I love meat and when you go to Tonga, nine times out of ten, about 60% of your meal is gonna be meat and about 30% is gonna be starches like taro or yam or something like that. But one of my favorite meals I ate was tulipuaca, which means roasted pig, where they take a whole pig and roast it over a fire. Then they just set the whole thing in front of you on the plate, on a big plate, and it's freaking delicious.

My favorite food in Tonga is lu sipi. And to make lu sipi, you take some meat, it can either be lamb or horse or chicken, and you wrap it up in these huge leaves called tado leaves that come from a tado plant. And once it's all wrapped up, you can wrap it up again in aluminum foil, or you can cook it with just the leaves. And you cook it over a fire underground, which is called an umu. And it steams the meat inside. Oh, and you also put coconut sauce inside. So it gives it an amazing flavor from the leaves, the coconut sauce, and the meat. It's so good. Everyone needs to try it.