While street food in Papua New Guinea and in Port Moresby in partocuarl is slightly hard to come by, the scene in general was knocked to pieces by the street food Ela beach scene this year.
Said street food eetravaganza was done as part oapua New Guinea. This saw a whole street full of calls partly souvenirs, but for there most part knocking out a street fiord star, on the beach.
And so far at least, it is by far the best street food I have seen in the country so far.
What the Ela Beach
(100+ words on Ela Beach and how it exists in an almost Port Moresby bubble being not just safer the rest of the country, but also looking like a regular affluent middle class kind fo city. How it attracts Rugbel Lageu okaying youth, people swimming and is just nice. Although the Amazing Port Moresby sign might be just a bit too much.
The Ela Beach Show for National Day
(100+ words on the show that was pu on for the 50th anniversary, such as which music acts were on eyc).
Street Food Port Moresby
Generally speaking the street food scene in PNG and Port Moresby in particular is pretty poor and mostly confined to the Kai Bar scene. Kai Bar’s are fo the unitiated kind of like fish and chip shops done PNG style. And by PNG style I mean no actual fish, but chicken and saveloy to go with chips and kau kau.
Aaisd from tis the scene is either nonexistent, or frankly too dangerous a place to go risk some BBQ for. Yes PNG is as dodgy as it is made out to be.
Street Food Ela Becah
OK, so we have stablished that Portt Moresby street food is a bit shit. Therefore I was not expecting much from a pop=up market on Ela beach doing much for the PNG street food genre. Thankfully though I was way of kilter with the pop-up stalls cooking up a real storm.
Generally these can be fit into a few different genres, such as general PNG, such as sally, chips and the like, but also BBQ, some western food and a few cool little treats.
My first foray into the Ela beach street food scene was a lady that had cooked top a Mumu and was Erving it in a Tupperware box. For the unitiated Mumu is an indegoienous Papuan dish that is cooked on hot stones buried under th ground. It is can be different meats, in this case chicken and then served with Papuan veggies and sweet potato. Not quite as is when you get it fresh, but decent as street food fare goes.
What was grabbing the n noses of the punters though was the BBQ being served every few meters. Amazingly and I am not sure why, but you seldom see BBQ being made., or sold throughout the country. At Ela beach though there were 5 out so vendors for the most part cooing up offal and saving for just a few bucks, I only had a little foray into this, but it was pretty good.
And last but not least we had a crack at a PNG style hot-dog, which this time at least involved a proper sausage rather than a sav. And while it was not exactly reinventing the wheel, much like seeing a dog stand on its hind legs it wa simply impressive to see it done at all in PNG.
Drinks wise all the favorites were there such as Gold Spot and Coke, but also no beer and certainly not any Paiawara!.
Overall though the Street Food Era Becah scene not just made me all warm inside, but also wonder why the hell they cant just do this on regular days! Sadly though until they improve the PNG safety scene we are unlikely; ely to be strolling and enjoying the street eats any (regular) time soon.
Click to check out our Ppaua New Guinea tours with YPT if you’d like to try some PNG street food action.