Australian food will be quite familiar to anyone coming from Europe or North America, with a few local twists of course.
On the street, fish ‘n’ chip shops or local corner stores selling fries, burgers and toasted sandwiches are in every town and many small villages with any amount of passing traffic. Curry restaurants are another popular pick.
Pastries or savoury pies filled with meat are also very popular and found nearly everywhere. Mrs. Macs is a favourite brand.
Bakeries are another regular feature and make a great stop for carb-loading cyclists. They don’t just sell bread but all sorts of sweets and muffins and often have a cafe too. A local bakery is the best place to try the famous Australian Lamington, a square of fluffy, white cake, covered in coconut.
A BBQ is hard to beat for lunch and you’ll find free gas barbeques in most parks, just waiting to fry up your onions or sausages. In some states, you can pick up kangaroo meat to cook up on the grill, although some people will find it hard to eat kangaroo after seeing them bounce around all over the landscape.
Self-caterers will be making regular trips to the supermarket or general store. The smaller the town, the higher the prices – sometimes double or triple compared to the supermarket – so stock up if you can in the bigger centres where you’ll find the IGA or Coles chains.
Wherever you are, staples like bread, cheese, deli meats, milk, cereals and tinned goods like tuna are easy to come by. Produce sections are predictably at their best in larger towns but picking up a few onions or carrots is rarely a problem.
Conveniently, larger items like cabbage and celery are often cut in half for sale, so you don’t need to take the whole gigantic head.
There are farmer’s markets don’t tend to be held every weekend, maybe just once a month, but you’ll find local produce sometimes for sale in tourist bureaus or other unlikely places.
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