Fruit Bats Nil – Turtles One

Steve Garley is something of a gastronaut, having tried just about everything edible in world cuisine. However, 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 in the property in addition to a fine dining restaurant, Au Jardin D’Epices, and Saffron, a Thai restaurant.  We arrived at the restaurant just at the end of the manager’s cocktail party, so we met the General Manager and enjoyed a glass of champagne.

Then we sat down to dinner to enjoy the “Seychelles Tasting” menu, although their idea of “Tasting” and mine are two different things when it comes to quantity. The portions were huge!  We began with octopus in batter, aubergine compote and a whole soft crab each.  I had not come across this soft crab which you eat whole.

Second course was a huge piece of lamb, three gigantic prawns, some vegetable chutneys, rice and (a first for me) fruit bat curry. So what is it like?  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, Blackbird Pate in Corsica ,Spiced Sparrow in Beijing, and Sea Slug and Duck’s Bill in Hong Kong. There is a season for fruit bat. You cannot get it all the year round so they are not endangered by the culinary habits of the Seychellois. Nevertheless I think I prefer them in the sky 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 alarmed, I indicated that I was really quite full thank you!  But no need to worry! They weren’t intended as gastronomy. We were going to release them into the Ocean.  We were taken by buggy to the beach to witness the release of the 80 tiny turtles. We touched them before they left, tiny and all soft with frantic fins, and then escorted them to the water and let them escape.   So the fruit bats may have lost but the turtles definitely won!

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