Le Pain de Mie

The Faith Based Encyclopaedia claims that "pain de mie" is "a type of sliced, packaged bread" similar to "pullman loaf or regular sandwich bread". Given that they don't sell anything like that there it seems like a moronic name, and since most of us don't speak frog we can't pronounce it properly anyway. Therefore most normal humans just call it either 'Samabula Bakery', 'French Bakery', or 'Big Red'.

This establishment sits at the base of Waimanu Road, across the road from the post office. It is a truly hideous building, I can only hope that the cheque from Vodafone was a large one.
Now lets look at their famous pie:

It is an impressive piece of pastry and meat, lets have a look inside.

Picky Eater disses this good shit and talks up the HBK alternative because of some pap about "moistness" vs "dryness" which is too nonsensical to repeat here. My only response is that the above looks and tastes like that it came from an actual chicken, whereas the HBK chicken pie filling is some sort of extruded chicken paste. The HBK might be moist, but is it real?

The pies are $3 each. The pastry is excellent. Get yourself some hot english mustard and work it into the filling and you have a splendid meal.

They also have danishes and quiches for $2 each and croissants for $0.80. I haven't eaten enough of these to have a useful opinion on them, but I'm certain they won't be able to sneak them into your South Beach diet.


The mince loaf is a favourite of the local FIT students, it is a long loaf cut along the spin and filled with curried mince.


They'll pretty much stick this curried mince on just about anything they sell. Order a whole loaf and they'll ask you how many pieces you want it divvied up into before they pack it. Not the healthiest meals you'll ever have, but certainly one of the cheapest at $1.80.

This is a cream loaf. It's a long loaf with cream in in it. Meh.

There are three Coke fridges, that aren't particularly well stocked. If you were looking for a bottle of Frank's or some other fancy drink you are shit out of luck. You usually will find a Coke or a sprite, but that it is not guaranteed.

There are no prices on the board. This is odd.

One other thing you can do here that is not particularly well advertised is that you can bring your own pork or chicken and stick in their ovens. The price varies according to size of the meat you bring, approximately $5 for two chickens or thereabouts.

For providing some of the cheapest lunches in Suva, thus really killing it on the price-performance curve, we give the Big Red Samabula French Bakery a thumbs up.

In Summary

Le Pain de Mie

Waimanu Rd, Samabula

Opening Hours:

Monday - Sunday: 24 hours/day

Spend

$0.60 - $3.00 per person

Verdict

Thumbs up

The Daily Catch

Closed ... just like their predecessors. Kania Tiko believes there is a curse on the building: every business operating from this location seems to go under.

After being distinctly unimpressed with The Daily Catch in the first instance, many people suggested that they've pulled up their socks, are back in the game, and didn't deserve the panning they got in the first review.

So here we are again.

The concept remains the same: you pick the fish and they fry it up on the spot with a parcel of chips. The fish options range from $5 to $10. Mussels and other extras sometimes show up as well.


The serves are generous: 3 or 4 pieces of fish and slightly more chips than one person wants to eat. The fish in batter is good. The chips are soggy. A lemon wedge was included with each serve, but no tomato sauce: you can buy that separately. There were no chillies included in the serve or on offer at the counter.

Each meal was dropped into a white paper bag (no cardboard tray) that was soon damp, translucent from the oil, and broke open. Given that every other serious fish and chip shop in town has a takeaway box (which works well), there's no reason to disadvantage your customers with poor packaging.

Coke and Pepsi fridges in the shop offer the usual range of canned acid to wash down the oily remnants of your lunch.

On the day I visited there were several other things that stood out, none of them particularly worrying by themselves, but adding up to a negative impression.

The display fridge had condensation problems preventing a good viewing of the fish on offer. Understandable when you have a display fridge in a non-air-conditioned environment, but still annoying and unsightly.

The fryer vent hood was not working that day, so they had a desk fan blowing across the top of the fryers ... ensuring each new visitor to the shop got hit with the smell of hot oil as they came through the door.

Whilst I don't approve of aquariums in fish and chip shops (it seems rude to stare at the little fellows while you wait for their bigger cousins to get fried up for lunch) they don't bother me ... but this fish tank featured a couple of tough little fellows swimming in water that was vomit green.

Add to that the blaring serenade of a Christian radio station being piped into a room with bare concrete walls ... and I don't ever want to go back.

No matter what your opinion of The Daily Catch, you can't help but miss the old Cakaudrove Fish.

In Summary

The Daily Catch

11 Bureta St, Samabula

Opening Hours:

Monday - Saturday: Lunch

Spend

$5 - $10 per person

Verdict:

Thumbs-down

The Daily Catch AKA Cakaudrove Fish & Chips redux

New review of The Daily Catch is now up. Head on over and give us your feedback.

Cakaudrove Fish has opened again, at their original location, but under new management, and with a new name. Whilst the concept seem to have survived, the fish and chip business is but a poor reflection of what it used to be.

Prices have gone up; the fish: soggy and oily; the batter is wanting. The chips are passable, but certainly not special enough to make up for the disappointing fish.

Their fry-on-demand approach keeps them a cut above the vast majority of brown-bag chip shops, but the original Cakaudrove Fish & Chippie has moved on, and so have we.

We'll give the new owners a few months to get their groove on, but until then, they get the thumbs down.

Cakaudrove Fish & Chips

Re-opened after some time-out; new management, new name... Despite inheriting the location and reputation, the new management are doing things differently, so we've given them a fresh review. This review will remain here, for old-times sake.

Cakaudrove Fish has been supplying good seafood to the denizens of Suva for many years, so it makes sense to me that they would expand their little empire to include fish & chips. And they do it right!

For a start you can pick your fish: raw fillets on display in the ice box, and then get both the fish and the chips cooked up for you right then and there. Gone are the days of lining up at the local chippy and hoping the contents of the warmer were actually cooked today.

The fish options range in price from $6.50 per serving for the nondescript stuff, to $9.50 for top-of-the-line cuts. I usually settle on something from the $7.50 pile - wahoo is nice. Whilst they have some nice cuts in the upper price ranges, I'm not sure that deep-frying does the more expensive fish justice - at the end of the day fish & chips will still be fish & chips.


Your money will get you a very generous serve of fish and a rather large amount of chips: I usually have difficulty finishing the chips before they reach the too-cold-to-eat point. Sharing one serve between two people often works out well.

They can also whip up prawn fritters, seafood sticks, mussels, and potato scallops ... depending on what's available on the day.

The whole deal is served up in a nice cardboard tray with a good-sized lemon wedge and a little plastic container of tomato sauce. Tartar sauce is also available for a bit extra.

The usual range of soft drinks is available in-store.

My only real gripe is that the amount of tomato sauce supplied struggles to provide adequate coverage for the chips. If they got a little more generous with that, and perhaps used seasoned salt on the chips, I would happily give them 10 out of 10.

The shop itself is a dinghy building behind Kunda Singh's Supermarket. But don't let the exterior put you off.

You are however, going to want to take your meal somewhere else to eat it. There is very little in the way of eat-in furniture, and what there is, is not attractive. Getting your meal from the shop to your chosen eating spot before it cools down too much is the least of your worries.

In Summary

Cakaudrove Fish & Chips

11 Bureta St, Samabula

Opening Hours:

8:30am - 6pm Monday to Thursday, 8:30am - 6:30pm on Friday, 7am - 6:30pm on Saturday, 8am - 1:30pm on Sunday

Spend

$6 - $10 per person

Verdict

Thumbs-up