Eating the Globe: Tonga

This was a heavy, heavy meal. I just woke up from an uncomfortable nap, very thirsty.

I got the 3-item combo.

The creamed spinach with canned corned beef was my favorite. The key ingredient, I suspected, was mayonnaise.

I also had a teriyaki turkey tail. I couldn't eat more than three bites of it because it was almost all completely fat. If you choose turkey tail as a part of the 3-item combo, you actually get two turkey tails. But when the owner Katalina was about to put the second one in my styrofoam container, I turned it down.

The third item was lamb wrapped in taro leaves. It was delicious but had a lot of little bones and gristle.

As for starch, you could choose from taro, sweet potato, or green banana. I opted for the more familiar white rice.

The owner was extremely gracious. She explained to us everything about the food, the Tongan community in the Bay Area, and the history of Tongans in the United States. She wanted us to try everything in the steam table so she gave us a "New Zealand sausage". It was mild and made in Los Angeles. She then started scooping out corned beef wrapped in taro leaves for us. We had to yell at her (in a friendly way) to insist that we had more than enough food.

We washed our meals down with this huge container of otai. It consisted of pieces of mangoes and coconuts.

I'm going to wait for a couple of months before my mind and body will be ready for a Samoan meal.

East Bay Express review here.

Countries tried so far:


Africa: Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa


Asia: Afghanistan, Burma, China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Malaysia, 
Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Yemen


Europe: Bosnia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuainia, Sweden


North America: Canada, El Savador, Mexico, USA

South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Venezuela

Oceania: Tonga