Food review PNG

Mumu restaurant, Port Moresby

The Mumu restaurant at the Hilton Hotel is hitting its straps just 12 months after opening. “It’s my favourite place to go in Port Moresby,” one expat comments.

Translated, mumu means ‘ feast’, or a way of traditional cooking. It is typically a hole in the ground layered with hot stones and food wrapped in banana leaves, which is covered with earth as everything slow cooks. Here, at the restaurant, the hole in the ground and heated stones are replaced by gas-fired, earthen-style ovens.

The Papua New Guinean chefs and wait staff are clearly proud to be presenting their country on a plate, and their enthusiasm and professionalism rubs off, with this bound to become the signature dining experience in the PNG capital.

The best tables in the house are in small pavilions with timberlouvre windows, polished floorboards and ceiling fans. Surrounded by lush vegetation, water features, flaming lanterns and fire cauldrons, it feels like you’re deep in a South Seas jungle and not the urban landscape of Port Moresby.

If PNG’s heat is too much on the day, you can be seated inside in air-conditioned comfort. Some of the seating is at a counter alongside the open kitchen.

Dining at Mumu is an experience, rather than a quick bite on the way to somewhere else.

Maryanne, my waiter for the night, takes the time to explain the dishes and the ritual of the mumu as practised in her home village.

The menu is small, but the dishes are oversize. It’s a good idea for two people to share one main.

The starters include a tasting plate with sago done four ways, and a clay-pot chicken and coconut soup. For the mumu main course, I could choose between pork,

slow-cooked lamb, barramundi (with calamari and tiger prawns), and chargrilled rib eye. It would be a welcome addition to the menu to have a combination plate of them all. To keep the home-grown theme going, mumu roasted vegetables such as kau kau (sweet potato), banana and yam are offered among the side dishes. If you dare, you can finish off with a dessert of sago cake, banana, red pandanus fruit and Highland chocolate.