Tamarind House Restaurant & Ukulele Bar — Restaurant in Avarua

(4.5 stars) New Kiwi managers have brought about a revitalisation of Tamarind House. They have made clever use of island fabrics to cover the azure blue chairs, which, in conjunction with the cane basket lights, gives the historic room a sunny, plantation vibe. The updated menu includes a few clever remixes of the island’s palette of ingredients, including a smoked chicken, pawpaw and edamame salad (NZ$18.50). There’s also an even better salade niçoise (NZ$22) which centralises a generous portion of seared tuna on blanched green beans, olives, tomatoes and boiled potatoes in a puddle of mayonnaise, crowned by a poached egg.

In the mains, the marlin fish curry (NZ$30.50) and the beef fillet (NZ$40) with braised brisket, butternut and potato mash, asparagus and jus performed best. Though more attention could be paid to ensuring the beef is cooked as ordered. Fish (NZ$35.50) was a good portion of snapper with savoury puréed rukau, assorted local root vegetable chips, a salsa dotted with flash-fried curry leaves and a green sauce I didn’t get much from—this dish lacked punch.

Desserts included a crème brûlée (NZ$16) that only wanted for the expected crisp cracking toffee topper. We also tried a Basque cheesecake (NZ$16), a rather thin affair where the trademark burnt top was unfortunately smothered under chocolate-dusted cream. They also have a range of alcoholic desserts, including an iced brandy Alexander (NZ$16) that would benefit from less ice-based dilution. A few tweaks aside, it’s great to see this famous Rarotonga restaurant resume its place among the...

Danger for Coeliacs. It’s a great location , and the friendly local Cook Islanders do make you feel at home. But despite ringing up and checking in advance if the GF listed items on the menu are ok for a coeliac diner, (and despite them actually acknowledging GF/coeliac requirements on arrival), somehow the message broke down when it came to server and chef. I asked the server if they could pass on to the chef that a Coeliac was dining, he looked like he didn’t know what that meant. He came back and said “I told chef, ‘everything gluten free”. The sashimi plate (GF advertised) came out with what looked like to be soy sauce, and just to be sure, we asked the server to check, and sure enough, he came out with a replacement tamari sauce, because the one he’d given us was the normal Kikkoman stuff with gluten in it. Then when the fish curry came out (GF advertised again), there were two pappadoms plonked on top of the rice. After asking about the pappadoms, the server took them away, but I insisted that they just take the whole rice/pappadoms plate away for contamination. A quick ‘sorry and enjoy your meal’ was all that was offered.

As I said before, a nice place, and definitely enjoyable if you’re not a coeliac, but if you are, steer clear. Food was ok. Kind of pub meal ish, but with a really beautiful setting and...

We went with a party of 20 people and the experience across the group was mixed.

The building and views are lovely. The grounds around the building are a nice place to have a short walk as well.

Perhaps it was just bad luck, but they had almost none of the beers and wines listed on their menu. This was made worse by the fact that this was not communicated to us, we just had to keep picking a drink from the menu and being told "we don't have any of that".

While most of the meals were served quickly, two of the meals did not appear until 30 minutes after the rest of the table had been served, despite us asking to see where they were and when they would be served several times.

Some of the meals contained ingredients that were not listed on the menu, and when enquired about prior to ordering, we we're informed that they were not in the meal. When the meal was delivered, and the ingredients discovered, the dish was removed and replaced with a new meal (the same meal with the same ingredients).

While we were there, several of our group complained that the woman's toilets were "underwater".

All in all, for the price of the meals, I thought the service was poor, and the experience as a whole...