posted 05-04-2003 08:04 PM         

We stayed at the Sheraton Tahiti, the PB Te Tiare in Huahine, and the Bora Bora PB. My wife does not eat meat, of any description, cows, pigs, chickens, fish, seafood. She does dairy, but not eggs if they're identifiable as such. Not a dietary or a social conscience thing; she just doesn't like the taste/texture of meat or eggs. 95% of the time I don't eat meat either, but when we go away or out for dinner, I will just for a change, as we do veggie 100% at home.

PB Te Tiare:

One of my few complaints about the Te Tiare, was their complete lack of vegetarian options on the menu. Save for a green salad, every other menu selection had either seafood or meat. The chef was willing to make a couple of the menu items vegetarian for her, however she is always somewhat suspect on how this is done. As a side note, she's also allergic to fish. Not seafood, but fish.

There was the standard polynesian buffet/dance show thing, which had no main courses that were vegetarian. Again, the chef offered to make her a vegetarian risotto, but we still would have had to pay 4900 CFP for that pleasure. Instead, we had an early dinner at a roulotte in Fare; they're quite willing to make a casse croute with just cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and mustard. It also helped that my wife is a fluent french speaker, so there was never a question about exactly what she needed.

For the most part, we ate very light breakfasts (coffee on the deck with a couple of granola bars from Sydney), had a very late lunch, then had a bottle of wine (again, brought from Sydney) with some munchies in the evening. Worked out quite well.

PB Bora Bora:

Ok, the menu selection here was much better. At the main restaurant, there were actually 3-4 vegetarian appetizers; as well as a set menu for vegetarians. Clearly much more touristed than Huahine. The set menu though, I thought was a rip off - 5600 CFP for appetizer, main and dessert. The same three items, puchased separately a la carte came to 5100 CFP (albeit one of them would have to be upsized to a main course).

Oh, and yes - the upside down chocolate cake is to die for. In fact, I suggest you order it as an appetizer and then see if you even need any more food. Seriously.

The pool bar had a couple of vegetarian salads, and pasta as well. Though, I'm not sure who wants to chow back a big plate of pasta when you're sitting by the pool in the hot polynesian sun, but to each his own. I quite liked the cheeseburgers there - in fact a cheeseburger and plate of fries around 4pm, and we didn't need dinner. Well, what we needed was to go back for dessert around 9pm....

We purposely did not get the meal plans because of my wife's dietary needs, and I'm glad we didn't. If you got the full meal plan for either of these places, you'd eat yourself to death in less than a week - just too much food. While we didn't actually go thinking conciously to save money on eating, just based on how we approached it (eating late afternoon, eating at roulottes, etc), our food budget wasn't that much at all. And seriously, if you go there trying to save money, you're headed for the wrong holiday destination.