Kiosks in the towns and cities of Madagascar serve a range of savoury and sweet fritters and cakes like doughnuts.

Get to know that types of food and cuisine you are likely to encounter in Antsirabé using our Antsirabé Restaurant Guide below. We have listed a number of great Antsirabé  restaurants for you to keep in mind while on holiday in the region. Familiarise yourself with the local ingredients in the Antsirabé shopping precincts, before tasting its unique blend in some of the great restaraunts in Antsirabé. Our Madagascar Restaurant Guide introduces you to the cuisine throughout the country.

Food & Cuisine in Antsirabé

The staple food of Madagascar is rice. It is grown all over the country and the people have evolved many rice-based dishes cooked in assorted spices, meats and vegetables. The locals love to eat rice by heaping it in a mound and topping it with potatoes, peanuts, corn, fish, crab, chicken, pork, and an exceptional variety of local beef called zebu. Rice is also eaten with spicy nutritious curries made with veal, fish and the amazing variety of fresh tropical vegetables and fruits that are abundant in supply.

There are some dishes that are unique to Madagascar and are not to be missed. There is Koba, which is a paste (pate) of rice, peanut and banana. This combination is not everybody's cup of tea. If it is not yours then pass it up and settle for Madagascar's celebrated seafood salad, where fresh seafood marinated in lime and ginger lies nestled in a bed of greens. Or you can try Akoho sy voanio, a dish made with rice, fresh coconut and chicken or sample a stir fried pork, crab and rice dish ‘Foza sy hena - kisoa'.

Street foods

Kiosks in the towns and cities of Madagascar serve a range of savoury and sweet fritters and cakes like doughnuts.

Mofo Gasy or Malagasy Bread is a very popular snack. Commonly eaten at breakfast and washed down with a cup of coffee, mofo gasy is made from a sweetened batter of rice flour poured in greased round moulds placed over charcoals. Mofo Boule is a deep fried doughnut made from corn flour. If you like spice, try the more pungent mofos. There is mokary, a savoury counterpart of mofo gasy with a little wheat flour thrown in. There is also spicy bread called mofo sakay where the dough is mixed with peppers, minced greens and tomatoes to give it that tang.

Then come the fruit fritters, which are made most commonly with banana and pineapple but include other fruits as well. Fritters and Mofo can be bought in sets or in individual portions and come wrapped in newspapers, a most convenient take away.

Koban-dravina is another Malagasy delicacy, which is the result of a painstaking and time-consuming process. Here, brown sugar and peanuts are ground together and encased in a batter of sweetened pasty rice flour batter. This five-inch thick, one-foot long bundle is then wrapped in fresh banana leaves and boiled over several days, till the sugar has caramelized and the outer covering has soaked in the peanut oil from the filling and solidified. The ‘foot long' is then cut into thin slices and served to you or packed in paper for you to take away.

Koba akondro, another sweet, is found mostly at petrol stations and other wayside stalls. It is made by mixing together corn flour, honey, mashed bananas and ground peanuts. This mixture is then wrapped in banana leaves and boiled or steamed till the batter has solidified.

There is more street food to come. If you do not get put off by the name then try pigeon droppings or ‘caca pigeon', a deep fried savoury made from salted flour. Or you can pick up dried bananas, balls of tamarind rolled in sugar that has been coloured, peanut brittle, potato chips and home made yoghurt. If you are in the interiors, then snack on steamed sweet potatoes or manioc served with condensed milk.

Beverages

It is rare to find fresh milk in these areas. The locals get their dose of calcium by mixing the condensed milk or yoghurt with hot water. A hot drink made from sweetened powdered soy is drunk at breakfast. Coffee, tea and fruit juices are, of course, great favourites. If you are looking for a heady brew, then there is Dzama rum, which is not very expensive and found in plenty. There is also wine from the southern part of the Highland regions and 'THB' or the ‘Three Horse Beer' from Star Breweries.

Finally, there is ‘ranonapango', Madagascar's most traditional and popular beverage.