How to eat your way through a 4-night Cairns holiday

Have you ever wondered how you could eat your way through a 4 night Cairns holiday? Probably not I hear you say. If you are going on a holiday to Cairns though, here are some suggestions. I recently took my youngest two daughters on a short holiday to Cairns, in Far North Queensland. We had a brilliant time and we ate well too.

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Sunday 2 July 2017

Breakfast

I’m not going to start with when I was joined by my daughters but when I started my holiday on Sunday morning when I flew from Canberra to catch up with my daughters.

Qantas gave me a free upgrade to Business Class which meant I had a lovely breakfast of poached eggs, pork sausages and wilted spinach along with a Danish pastry and a tub of sweetened Greek yoghurt.

Qantas free business class upgrade breakfast. Pork sausages, poached eggs and wilted spinach with a Danish pastry and sweetened Greek yoghurt. Gary Lum
Qantas free business class upgrade breakfast. Pork sausages, poached eggs and wilted spinach with a Danish pastry and sweetened Greek yoghurt.

Lunch

We drove to Caloundra and ate lunch at Beau’s. I enjoyed a pulled pork burrito with hints of Thai.

Beau's Thai Burrito with pulled pork Gary Lum
Beau’s Thai Burrito with pulled pork

Dinner

We were joined by my parents and we ate the new Westfield Chermside food plaza at Pho Vietnamese Kitchen. I had a refreshing green pawpaw salad.

Green pawpaw salad with pork and prawns from Pho Vietnamese Kitchen. Gary Lum
Green pawpaw salad with pork and prawns from Pho Vietnamese Kitchen.

Dessert was an eclair from Savour in the new Westfield Chermside food plaza.

Savour Patisserie Eclairs from Chermside Gary Lum
Savour Patisserie Eclairs from Chermside

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Monday 3 July 2017

Breakfast

We ate at the airport. I had scrambled eggs, pork sausages and baked beans.

Qantas Club breakfast snags, eggs and baked beans Gary Lum
Qantas Club breakfast snags, eggs and baked beans

Lunch

Lunch was late and was in the Cairns Centre. We spotted a Roll’d and enjoyed a Bánh mì. Sorry, no photograph.

Dinner

We ate at Bobzip Korean Restaurant.

Bobzip Cairns

I had the pork Katsu which was delicious.

Pork katsu from Bobzip Cairns Gary Lum
Pork katsu from Bobzip Cairns

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Tuesday 4 July 2017

Breakfast

After a walk to see the sunrise we ate at Silk Caffe and I enjoyed a breakfast wrap with chicken, bacon, brie and cranberry.

Chicken bacon brie cranberry breakfast wrap from Silk Caffe Gary Lum
Chicken bacon brie cranberry breakfast wrap from Silk Caffe

Lunch

We ate lunch after snorkelling on the Sunlover Reef Pontoon. I made myself a prawn sandwich.

Prawn sambo on Sunlover Reef Pontoon Gary Lum
Prawn sambo on Sunlover Reef Pontoon
I've never removed the alimentary tract from a prawn Gary Lum
I’ve never removed the alimentary tract from a prawn

Dinner

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped in at the Tandoori Oven and enjoyed some Beef Madras, Lamb Korma and Butter Chicken with plain and garlic naan bread. It was a food highlight of our trip.

Beef Madras, Lamb Korma, and Butter Chicken from the Tandoori Oven, Cairns Gary Lum
Beef Madras, Lamb Korma, and Butter Chicken from the Tandoori Oven, Cairns

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Wednesday 5 July 2017

Breakfast

This was in two parts and we weren’t sure of whether something would be available at Freshwater Train Station so in the apartment we had Peanut M&Ms and hot drinks. At the Freshwater Train Station, we found the tuck shop and I had a huge damper scone with butter and jam.

Huge damper scone

Morning tea

Vanilla Slice at Kuranda Markets Gary Lum
Vanilla Slice at Kuranda Markets

Lunch

We ate at the Rainforest Views Restaurant in Kuranda. I had the Ton of Fun Burger.

Ton of Fun burger from the rainforest Views Restaurant Kuranda Gary Lum
Ton of Fun burger from the rainforest Views Restaurant Kuranda

Dinner

We’d eaten a lot of Asian with Korean, Vietnamese and Thai so we sought European cuisine and went with Italian. We ate at Bel Paese Trattoria and Pizza. I loved by crumbed veal parmigiana.

Crumbed veal parmigiana at Bel Paese Trattoria Pizzeria, Cairns City Gary Lum
Crumbed veal parmigiana at Bel Paese Trattoria Pizzeria, Cairns City

For dessert, we wondered around and found NITRO LATO; I had the Aussie Adventure.

NITROLATO
NITROLATO Ice creams in Cairns City Gary Lum
NITROLATO Ice creams in Cairns City

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Thursday 6 July 2017

Breakfast

After a walk to see the sunrise again, we stopped and ate pancakes at Helga’s Pancake House. I had a short stack which was filling and very nice.

Short stack from Helga's Pancake House, Cairns Gary Lum
Short stack from Helga’s Pancake House, Cairns

Lunch

We spent most of the day at Paronella Park. We bought food from the tuck shop there. I had a couple of chicken and mushroom filo pastry creations.

Chicken and mushroom filo with Ginger beer Gary Lum
Chicken and mushroom filo with Ginger beer

Dinner

We returned to our Asian roots and ate Chinese at Taste of China. We enjoyed pan-fried pork dumplings, an Far North Queensland (FNQ) mud crab, deep-fried duck and crispy skin lemon chicken. For dessert, we bought a tub of ice cream, a jar of Nutella and added peanut M&Ms to make the best ice cream sundaes ever.

Pan-fried pork dumplings at Taste of China Gary Lum
Pan-fried pork dumplings at Taste of China
Queensland mud crab with garlic ginger and shallots at Taste of China Gary Lum
Queensland mud crab with garlic ginger and shallots at Taste of China
Deep fried duck and lemon chicken from Taste of China Gary Lum
Deep fried duck and lemon chicken from Taste of China
Caramel and honeycomb ice cream with Nutella and Peanut M&Ms from Woolworths Gary Lum
Caramel and Honeycomb ice cream with Nutella and Peanut M&Ms from Woolworths

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Friday 7 July 2017

Breakfast

After our now routine sunrise walk, we went to Bang and Grind. I ate a toasted almond croissant which was delicious.

Almond custard croissant from Bang and Grind Gary Lum
Almond custard croissant from Bang and Grind

Lunch

After a morning visiting various beaches north of Cairns we stopped at Trinity Beach and enjoyed another Italian meal at L’Unico. I had a fabulous calamari caesar salad. It was to die for.

Calamari Caesar Salad from L'Unico, Trinity Bay Gary Lum
Calamari Caesar Salad from L’Unico, Trinity Bay

Dinner

By this stage we were flying from Cairns to Brisbane, well it turns out we flew to Coolangatta, but to get the details you need to read the post which outlines the holiday on my other blog.  

For dinner, I had falafel and couscous. Not too bad for aeroplane food.

Qantas Falafel and couscous Gary Lum
Qantas Falafel and couscous

And so ends this post highlighting the food treats from my Cairns holiday.

Have you been to Cairns? Have you considered a food holiday in Cairns?

 

14 Responses

  1. A trip started with an upgrade to business class has got to be a good thing! The flight is so short too I am amazed they had time to serve something hot but I think people expect something hot in business class.

  2. Glad to see ginger beer and vanilla slices on here, Gary. Must admit I indulged in Magyar krémes (which is insanely good vanilla custard slice, better than anything you can get anywhere else!) and really gingery ginger beer (Kinley brand).

  3. Lovely to see the food again, Gaz. That crab looks delicious and juicy. Was the mud crab spicy, or more of a buttery taste? I love crab when it come with butter 🙂 I’m not a huge fan of salads because in general I don’t like cold food apart from sushi. But calamari salad – it sounds like the calamari must have been warm and crunchy 😀

    1. It was a garlic, ginger and shallot mud crab Mabel. It didn’t have any chilli. There was an opinion for a deep fried salt and pepper mud crab but that wouldn’t draw out the crab flavours. My favourite way of cooking mud crab is in a big wok with lots of heat plus lots of liquid in the wok to generate steam and cook it with a sweet chilli sauce.
      The calamari was certainly crunchy and the cos lettuce was really fresh so it was crunchy too. It was delicious and not overly laden with caesar dressing.

      1. It sounds like a lot of effort to cook crab, but crab is crab and tastes very well when done right 🙂 Crunchy calamari is the best kind of calamari 😀

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