1124 Hinemoa Street
Rotorua, New Zealand
+64 7 349 1985

‘I Ate the Lotus, Say Haven’t You Noticed?’ – REM

I AM BACK

Back in Melbourne.

Back to uni (I don’t start class until March but I am sub-editing the student magazine this year and we started working on the first edition weeks ago so yes, that counts as ‘uni’).

And more importantly, back to blogging.

And bring sexy with me while I’m at it, too.

In due course, I will be writing about my wonderful foodie adventures in Indonesia (that is, after I’ve churned out a few Melbourne posts and recounted my Gold Coast foodie adventures during the New Year period). But for now, let’s finish off my New Zealand series, shall we?

We will continue our mini road trip in Rotorua, where Marty and I landed one morning after a very early flight from Wellington. After hopping off one of those small Bombardier airplanes, we picked up our rental car… and headed straight to Waimangu Volcanic Valley. Located 20 minutes south of Rotorua proper, past some very gorgeous pine trees and lots of sheep, Waimangu is the world’s youngest geothermal system. It is famous for it’s craters, lakes and hot water springs – all of which you can see if you decide to hike through it.

Marty and I were keen for a mid-morning hike so after I switched my boots for my Vans (they were the only comfortable pair of shoes I had with me), we paid our NZD$34.50/AUD$27.38 admission fee and off we went down the Mt Haszard hiking trail.

After three and a bit hours of walking, picture-taking and swan-chasing, we drove back to Rotorua to refuel. Not knowing where to go for some good grub, we walked around before stopping at a Vietnamese bakery on one of the city’s main streets, Lotus Café & Bakery.

Because it was late afternoon, a lot of the Vietnamese dishes (yes, they served phở!) had already finished. They did, however, had enough slices of pork and bread rolls to whip up two Vietnamese pork rolls. I can’t remember how much we paid for them but NZD$5-6 sounds about right. The bread your stock-standard (almost stale) white baguette roll and although I could have sworn that Marty asked for ‘cold pork slices’, we got BBQ pork instead. Not to worry, I liked that they were generous with the pickled carrots coriander but there was nary a smidgen of pâté or fish sauce in there which was slightly disappointing.

Even though it’s kind of random, I’m glad that a Vietnamese bakery exists in a city like Rotorua. While the pork roll wasn’t horrible, I would urge that you wait until you’re back home in either Sydney or Melbourne if you want a decent Vietnamese pork roll.