Offbeat Eats

After our three days of hiking in the mountains north of Cilaos, it was time to return to civilization. In this case, the city of Saint-Pierre, the largest city on the island, which has a surprisingly nice beach, and a very vibrant cultural scene. Saint-Pierre was also a return to actual restaurants. The entire beachfront in town is filled with a variety of food trucks, cafes, and restaurants, and we ended up settling on Le Moana, a Tahitian restaurant (Tahiti being yet another French island…).

As part of our trip, we decided to take a several-day hiking trip in the mountains of Réunion. One of the classic hikes is visiting the highest peak on the island: the Piton des Neiges, the extinct volcano that forms the center of Réunion’s cirques. At 3000m/10,700 ft, the highest peak on the island, it’s a bit of a hike, and the ever-present cloud layers don’t exactly help with the view. The standard technique for handling this is to break the hike in two: first hike up to the Gîte du Caverne Dufour for the night, and then get up at 4am and hike the remaining 600m to the summit to catch sunrise. The trail, however, is designed by the same people that designed the roads: steep, narrow, and having lots and lots of switchbacks. Gaining 1100 meters over the course of just 2500 meters makes this almost a staircase into the clouds. But when you get there, while rustic, the Gîte is actually pretty pleasant.

Once we left Hermitage-Les-Bains, almost all of our remaining lodging on Réunion consisted of various gîtes. The “gîte” is a bit of a French-specific concept, but it basically means “guest house”, and the concepts ranges ranges from simple “gîtes a la montagne” (mountain huts providing little more than a meal, a bunk, and a blanket), to nicer “gîtes rural” (simple guest rooms), to elaborate Chambre d’Hôtes” which are like fancy bed and breakfasts. In Palmiste Rouge we stayed at a pretty good example of a “gîte rural”: Domaine Papangue, a beautiful home in the mountains of Cirque de Cilaos, which was outfitted with a small guest house with four very simple bunkrooms, a pool, and an excellent view (a product of a most adventuresome drive down the canyons and back roads of Palmiste Rouge). Domaine Papangue also had splendid hosts, who cooked us a fabulous dinner, taught us a bit about the island’s culture Creole cuisine (despite a modest language barrier), gave us hiking advice (of the cautionary sort, “Can I see your route on a map? Seems tres sportif! Are you sure?”), and even let us leave some luggage with them while we hiked. And, in what was a rather common occurrence throughout our Réunion travels, marveled at the fact that we were Americans, since Americans almost never show up in Cilaos.

Sometimes, getting there is half the fun. Our next destination in Réunion, Cilaos, involved one of the most interesting and challenging drives I’ve ever done. On an island already infamous for it’s many steep and winding roads, the N5, leading from Ilet Palmistes to Cilaos in the Cirque de Cilaos, is the granddaddy of them all. The road is only approximately 20 km long, but that 20 km of driving involves over 2000 m of elevation gain and loss, over 600 turns (most of them in the 400+ switchbacks), two one-lane tunnels, several one-lane segments, dozens of blind corners, narrow shoulders, and other driving challenges. The road is so twisty that in a few places it even loops back over itself! It truly is one of the most challenging, and most impressive, drives I’ve ever done (especially at night!). And after our first drive up the N5, we emerged from the Peter Both Tunnel to find a small parking area, and, a “Camion Bar”. In the pantheon on Réunionnaise restaurants, if there’s anything that comes in a close second in popularity to the ubiquitous “le Snack Bar”, it would be “Le Camion Bar”. Basically, a food truck. And seeing the “Camion Bar Broderie” was certainly a welcome sight, and a chance to put the twists, turns, and tunnels of the drive behind me as we stopped, enjoyed the view, and had some sandwiches.

Our second day of exploring the Western Coast of Réunion had us staying in the resort town of Hermitage-Les-Bains. It’s definitely a resort town, dominated by several large resorts, and the local dining scene caters to it, with a rather large assortment of restaurants offering up large buffets and extensive cocktail bars. While a few of these places (La Marmite and Coco Beach in particular looked like they had a rather nice assortment of Carris and seafood), we opted to check out one of the quieter places a bit off the beaten path. Our first attempt was the diminutive and subtle L’Arc en Ciel, which looked phenomenal, but were unable to fit us in. But around the corner we found Le Manta, a pleasant restaurant built around two very large and lush outdoor dining gardens (one smoking, “le section fumeur” is still alive and flourishing in France) and a rather extensive menu built around Réunionnaise Creole cuisine.

Our next goal before leaving Saint-Denis was to make sure we tried one of the restaurants known for local Créole cuisine, and in the case of Saint-Denis, there’s one place that has a particularly good reputation for catering to Créole tastes over those of visiting tourists, and that’s Le Reflet des Îles. Located about half a kilometer down Rue Pasteur (where about half of downtown Saint-Denis’s bars and restaurants are located) from the previously reviewed Zanzibar Café, just walking in you can see that it’s a popular place with both the tourists and the locals, with quite a few mainland French and Reunionnaise families all gathered around tables enjoying their rhum cocktails, la Dodo, and serving up large plates of food from various marmites (little cast metal pots traditionally used to cook the local carris, civets, and rougails) located all around the table.

Our second full day on Réunion had us setting out to check out on of the cooler geographic features of the island: the Cirques. Réunion was essentially formed by two volcanoes: the now-extinct Piton des Neiges, and the still active Piton de la Fournaise. For the former, the old volcanic caldera has collapsed and eroded over the last 100,000 years to form three sub-formations: the Cirque, each a very steep mountain valley. All of them are inhabiting, but only two of them, the Cirque de Salazie and the Cirque de Cilaos, are road-accessible (the Cirque de Mafate is accessible only on foot or by air). So we decided to check out the Cirque de Salazie, since it’s a pretty short drive from Saint-Denis. The town of Hell-Bourg is located in the middle of the Cirque de Salazie, and the very rugged terrain makes this a splendidly beautiful French/Creole village located in the mountains. It’s a fairly quiet town, mostly with older Creole architecture, and primarily serves as a stepping-off point for the many hikers visiting the region (indeed, we basically returned to Hell-Bourg twice during our trip, once as hikers, and once driving through to see the forests of Belouve). But after checking out the area, we started to become hungry for lunch, and we immediately found the cute little Crêperie Le Gall.

Well, after a half-day of wandering around exploring the fairly unique town of Saint-Denis (I’m still trying to figure out why Réunion has such an unusually large number of insurance brokers and eyeglass shops… are there some weird niches in French insurance law and health care at play here?), it was time for dinner. One place we passed by that looked quite delicious was Zanzibar Café, located on Rue Pasteur a few blocks from our hotel. While the mainstay of Réunion cuisine is the island-specific carri served most anywhere, there’s also a lot of direct French influence in the food as well; you’ll also find patisseries, cafés, brasseries, charcuteries, and other mainstays of French culinary tradition all over the island (indeed, we stopped at many a fine patisserie located up in the hills kilometers from the cities). Zanzibar is a pretty good example of this: the menu at Zanzibar is basically your standard French cafe menu (steak frites, French chicken dishes, French-style sausages), alongside a rather nice assortment of Malagasy and African dishes.

Okay, here’s a bit of an unusual review for me. The first real step in exploring Île de la Réunion was actually found in getting there. We ended up taking the mostly-unknown-outside-the-Indian-Ocean Air Austral between Paris and Saint-Denis, in a really long 11 hour direct flight. They were price competitive (the route is heavily competed directly with Air France, and indirectly with Air Mauritius offering service to Port Louis with connecting flights back over to Réunion). One of the interesting things about Air Austral is one of the ways they’ve tried stay competitive with Air France with the food (Air France isn’t exactly known for their food). On the way there, we had the option of getting to pick a meal from their upgraded meal list (which turned out to cost $11 after conversion). The two most attractive options were the “Menu Marine” (Fish) and the “Menu Creole” (Réunionnaise Creole). We ended up choosing the latter, since while I can usually shrug off my mild seafood allergies, deliberately scoffing at them usually gets me in trouble. But shortly after our flight had established itself at cruising altitude, the flight attendants quickly showed up with our in-flight upgraded meals…

Many cities and cultures have developed there own, specific style of restaurant: the American-style diner. The British pub. The Japanese ramen bar. And, of particular interest here, the French Bistro. That little restaurant with tiny tables, tall chairs, cozy environs, with a bunch of diners packed in enjoying their wine, baguettes, steak frites, cassoulets, and other simple French fare in close company with soft music playing in the background. It’s a cliché of sorts, but not without a solid foundation of truth: Paris, in particular, is replete with most of the arrondissements sporting a rather impressive assortment of bistros and brasseries, ranging from the simple and traditional, up to the more modern “gastro bistro”, the bistro equivalent of the “gastro pub” offering modernized versions of classic bistro cuisine. But I’ll have to admit, I’ve got strong fondness for basic French cooking like beef bourguignon and steak frites, so when we had a free night in Paris, I set off in search of a good, simple bistro in the 6e arrondissement, and ended up picking Le Bistrot d’Henri for our dinner.