Meme's Gourmet, Mauritius by Obelix

Whilst it is all well and lovely to be sequestered in a beautiful resort in the lap of luxury, I do make an effort to venture out and suss out what the locals are eating (and doing! - for I am an unabashed people watcher).  So we went downtown to the capital of Port Louis and followed our noses for a bite of traditional Mauritian Chinese Hakka cuisine.

Meme's (pronounced Mei Mei's) is the type of place the city-folks who work in the big smoke go for lunch.  It's cheap and unpretentious and generally consistent with quality (so I've been told by the regulars).  We ordered a few things to try.


First up was the min bui (boiled noodles) which we ate with a serve of octopus rougaille.  Boiled noodles in name does not sound very attractive but it was like a Mauritian version of spaghetti aglio olio as it was served with a garlicky and peppery emulsion drizzled over the top.  The octopus rougaille was tender and had a tomato base and slowly cooked down.  I loved it.

We also sampled their moon keow which are deep fried wontons served in a vegetable broth.

Just out of curiosity, I had to try their soya eggs.  By far one of the better ones I've tasted.  The savouriness of the soya marinade really penetrated the whole egg.

All of the above cost approxinately $18 AUD.  Not bad value.  By the way, the above pictures are portioned off individual serves plated up and therefore not indicative of the true serves straight from the kitchen.  The noodles and moon keow pictured are a quarter of the actual overall serve one gets.

Verdict

We really liked it.

Overall

Meme's Gourmet is a great local cafe serving authentic (not targeted at tourists) food.  I really enjoyed it and it made a nice change from the endless stream of buffet-eating at the resort.

Find it at

Meme's Gourmet
Rue David, Port Louis
Mauritius
Telephone: 217 4937