An Indian magiti

Photo by David Lansing.

Dinner last night was a “family style” Fijian-Indian feast called a magiti. Likuliku puts on a magiti once a week, partially as a tribute to the Indo-Fijian culture (I don’t know how many Indian workers there are in Fiji currently, but at one point they made up almost half the population) and partially so that the executive chef, Shane Watson, can have a night off.

The “family style” thing means that they bring big platters of food to your table to share—even if, like me, you’re dining alone. So just like all the newlyweds surrounding me, I got a large bowl of lamb curry, another bowl of reef fish curry, and a third bowl—just in case I was still hungry—of chicken curry. Which was a shame because I’m not particularly fond of curry. It reminds me of several months spent traveling across Africa, years ago, when we put curry on just about everything, from scrambled eggs to canned tuna, because we had no other spices.

This was in addition to the mud crabs (also in curry!), spiced grilled pawns, split pea bar, tandoori chicken, dhal soup, and the pappadums I had as a precursor to the multiple curries. You know, sort of an Indian amuse bouche.