Steve Garley has tried just about everything edible in world cuisine, but even he had a culinary first in the Seychelles…

We decided to try gourmet Creole cooking in the Chez Lamar restaurant in the Banyan Tree. This is one of three restaurants - Au Jardin D’Epices is the fine dining a la carte venue and Saffron is a tasty Thai restaurant.   We sat down to enjoy a “Seychelles Tasting” menu, although their idea of “Tasting” and mine are two different things.  The portions were huge!  We began with octopus in batter, aubergine compote and a whole soft crab that you eat in its entirety.

Second course was a huge piece of lamb, gigantic prawns, some vegetable chutneys, rice and fruit bat curry. Now curried fruit bat is a first for me!  It’s incredibly bony but very tasty although I could not take the” pfaffing around” of getting it off the bone. Definitely a taste experience though, and that’s an accolade  coming from the man who has eaten Pangolin in Guilin, Spiced Sparrow in Beijing, and Sea Slug and Duck’s Bill in Hong Kong.  There is a season for fruit bat, so they are not endangered by the culinary habits of the Seychellois. Nevertheless I think prefer them in the air than in my curry.  The manager returned at the end of the meal to tell us that he had a box full of tiny turtles that had hatched that evening. Slightly concerned, I told him we really were quite full, but there was no need to worry!  These 80 tiny turtle hatchlings weren’t intended as desert but were to be released into the Ocean.  We were taken by buggy to the beach and then escorted them to the water and let them escape.