Samoa! Arriving, Giordano’s & Paddles

The bus ride from the airport in Samoa to our hotel in Apia was a lovely drive along the northern coastline passing through numerous villages. The trip took about an hour and it was a nice introduction to Samoa, seeing families chatting or sleeping in their Fales, numerous buses overly packed with people (I must get a photo), tropical fruit growing everywhere, beautiful blue coloured water, many homes with gravestones outside, shelter stops along the road and many little convenience stores at regular intervals.
Everybody else on the bus got off at Aggie Grey’s except for our group that continued on to Insel Fehmarn Hotel a few minutes drive inland from the town centre.
After getting ourselves sorted at the hotel we headed across the road to Giordano’s Pizzeria and had a late lunch in their lovely courtyard. This was our first experience (on this trip) of island time whereby once we had placed our orders, it took about an hour for our food to emerge rom the kitchen. It’s okay though, we had Vailima (their local beer) to sample and we indeed made sure we sampled it well; it is a nice very light (and simple) lager that is very easy to drink.
I had a lovely tropical salad for my meal. This contained toasted coconut, papaya, mango, apple and numerous other fruits. I would very happily order this again.
Jane had the seafood salad that she really enjoyed and we shared some garlic pesto pizza bread that was flavoursome. This was packed with prawns. Chris had a pepperoni pizza which I believe he enjoyed and Wendy had a nice salad.
After eating we headed along to a local supermarket and picked up some supplies. Many of the same items and brands we can buy in NZ are available in this store that was more akin to a Foursquare but also sold alcohol, including spirits, and Coke in glass bottles.
We returned to our hotel and attempted to chill water in our fridge. It’s fair to say our fridge isn’t the best and cold is something it may have done in a previous lifetime. We also had a cat make itself at home with us.
A Tala$5 (which is about NZ$3) ride into town (and slightly beyond) took us to Paddles restaurant that has a nice outlook over the water, although the girls just seemed to like checking out the muscles on the various waiters.
We all started with cocktails, and I particularly enjoyed the Midori Vice I had that had Midori and coconut cream (milk?). Jane really enjoyed her Papaya Flyer too which was packed with flavour.
A few of us started with the Samoan Oka (marinated tuna) which was really good but a huge course for an entree. It was also accompanied by breadfruit chips that were really good.
I had Yellowfin Tuna done in a cajun style for my main that was accompanied with  a nice lettuce and watercress salad, and whilst the meal was okay there wasn’t any wow factor.
Jane and Chris each had Chilli Prawns and Chicken for their mains, which was on glass noodles (although I recall they had some other name for them). They both really enjoyed the nice fresh flavours of it.
I can’t recall what Wendy had but it looks good.
The service was good, food good, arrived in a timely manner, cocktails were great and the waiters good eye candy for the ladies. We would happily return.