Food is the icing on Madagascar's tourist cake

ANTANANARIVO, July 9 (Reuters) Most tourists come to Madagascar for its unique wildlife, but the big island off the east coast of Africa has another little-known attraction: food.

''The foie gras is the speciality of my chef,'' says the youthful proprietor of Ku De Ta, one of a handful of French restaurants in the Malagasy capital, as he points to a menu boasting a mouth-watering selection including escargots and frogs' legs.

Served in small portions on thin wafers of bread, the fattened duck liver turns out to be superb -- and, at about 4 dollars, a steal compared with what you would pay in a good Paris restaurant.

A legacy of French rule which ended almost five decades ago, visitors from France say the food is comparable with anything back home -- and it has plenty of local variation as well.

The main local beef comes from zebu, a humped cattle well-suited to the tropics.

At another restaurant, a French tourist, Jerome, raves about his zebu steak which followed a glass of pastis, served in the traditional manner with chilled mineral water.

''This is really done the French way, with lots of garlic,'' he exudes, a glass of red wine in one hand -- a quite drinkable Bordeaux, of course.

A meal can be topped off with local specialities such as rum flavoured with vanilla, a major cash crop on the island.

FOOD REFLECTS CITY The food is in many ways a reflection of the capital, Antananarivo, a picturesque riot of Europe, Asia and Africa nestled among rolling hills in a sub-tropical setting.

Winding cobbled streets and elegant church spires give the city, affectionately known as ''Tana'', a distinct ''old Europe'' flavour.

Sturdy, unpretentious red brick buildings are a legacy of 19th-century missionaries from Britain while gabled rooftops evoke the French who ruled from 1895 to 1960.

Other buildings have local roots, with sharp angles and high pitched roofs like the A-frame structures typical of the surrounding countryside.

Colourful clumps of bougainvillea spill over stone walls while barefoot beggars are a reminder that beneath the facade lies a poor, developing country.

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