idiodyssey
(Inspired by Will Self)
I’m not exactly a food connoisseur. After all I’ve been frighteningly skinny for most of my life and it was only last year that I hit seventy kilos after becoming particularly enamored with my mother’s porridge. Once in a restaurant, I tend to just order a plate of fries and because I’m not particularly fond of meat (I like to tell people I’m a ‘wannabe’ vegetarian’ but I’m not really joking)I’d probably make a terrible restaurant critic. However ignorance has never stopped anybody before and its dammn well not going to stop me. So I’m taking it upon myself to tackle Kigali’s dysfunctional restaurants. It’s not so much the food as the service which is often quite shockingly lacking so my lack of appreciation of good food will not be a particular handicap. Or maybe it will-frankly who cares?
Legends:
The only restaurant in Kigali in which you could probably be assured of good, quick service is Legends. I first noticed this when I went with a friend some months ago and the waiter turned out to be so over-attentive that you could hardly tie your shoelaces without his input. This may have been because my dinner companion was evidently a very attractive woman or it may have been because this is indeed Legends ethos. Either way the service was outstanding and the view from the window was pretty wicked as well. The candle hurriedly brought to our table suggested that the waiter thought this was a date and I didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise as the poor guy was working so bloody hard. I was also appreciative of the art that was on the walls-any restaurant that tries to marry abstract art and hamburgers surely cant go wrong. It’s a clever ploy to make you think you are picking up a bit of culture.
So what were we going to have? Legend’s prices were eye-watering but I recommended the envelope du poulet to my friend. This exotically-named dish is basically chapatti wrapped around soft pieces of chicken. It’s not only ridiculously filling, but astoundingly tasty as well-and this is coming from a man who does not particularly appreciate meat. My friend trusted my judgment and as she scanned the drinks list, I dithered over my own choice. What is it about menus that they render you paralyzed by giving you too much choice? And worse, the long flowery descriptions of each dish meant that even for a fast-reader, my progress reading the menu was slow. The word ‘marinated’ appeared to be the star of the show as it is on many menus. Some of the dishes sounded like titles for Damien Hirst’s art pieces. As he asked me what I would like to drink, I had the sudden urge to mumble “We want the finest wines available to humanity and we want them now….” but I feared the reference would be lost and I would just look silly. I ordered a petit mutzig which at 800 francs, I could only assume had a few drops from the fountain of life. My friend asked for a glass of red wine. I wasn’t sure which one of us was Whitnail.
I finally settled on the intore burger which was more pocket-friendly although I was miffed to see it in the children’s section. The meal arrived promptly and we got to work. My friend who is usually charming and eloquent quickly became reduced to mono-syllables during consumption of the envelope. My burger meanwhile was solid and unspectacular but very effective-like Michael Carrick in the Manchester United midfield. Conversation which had started out witty and rambling was briefly suspended as we became mindless automatons to the culinary masters. Space-time became noticeably more wobbly.
My friend considered leaving a tip of 2,000 francs and I was aghast. “That is way too much!” I protested. Even for excellent service, that was over-kill. We snapped out of our stupor long enough to pay the bill and head off into the night.
Bonjour Café Resto
Despite the uninspiring name, Café Resto is at least a step ahead of Fido Dido which had owned the premises before and which had clearly believed very strongly in minimalism as a concept. I went there with my brother for lunch one hot afternoon and while he decided to risk the buffet, I settled down for my lunchtime read with the menu wondering idly how it would end. Would there be a killer twist on the last page?
As I cruised through –it was not as interesting as the Legends menu but it was decent although the characters were a little dodgy- I stumbled upon an interesting oddity. They were offering a ‘Hum sandwich’ and a variety of other ‘hum’ based products. I was mystified-what kind of sandwich was this? Did it hum as soon as it was placed on the plate? I wanted no part of it.
The waiter proved very elusive dashing from table to table and conveniently forgetting me In the corner waving my hand and shouting ‘Excusez!’ I briefly wished that my attractive friend who had accompanied me to Legends Restaurant had been present- I would have got much better service. The service was pretty shit, but in Kigali, that is the norm. My brother came back with his plate piled high with delicious looking food. A battalion of flies began to take a keen interest in our business-never a good sign. The restaurant is partly outdoors (wait, does that sound right?) so keeping out the flies would require the restaurant equivalent of the great wall of China. I’m fairly sure the Chinese didn’t build it to protect their noodles.
When the waiter finally arrived, I gave the menu one last look and looked up at him with a serious and pensive look in my eye.
“I’ll have a plate of fries” I told him.
UTC-Food court
The food court is a good place in a kind of bland corporate way. You can sit there and almost feel like you are in the center of Kigali watching dozens of people walk in and out every few seconds. The menu is unpretentious but meatier (metaphorically) than Bonjour Café and everything is spelled right. I briefly toyed with the idea of just ordering a plate of fries, but I figured I needed to be a bit more adventurous with food. It was a very sandwich-heavy menu and everyone around me appeared to be eating a sandwich.
I ordered a cheese sandwich and my brother ordered something a lot more exotic-sounding but which was basically a sandwich as well. Our drinks arrived fairly quickly but the waitress was one of those who was not going to smile unless she was under duress. Our meals arrived in about fifteen minutes and the sandwich was quite good although the fact that I was starving may have contributed to this. A bar of soap might have received three stars if it had arrived on my plate. In any event, the bill came to around 3,000 which was manageable. The paradox about the food court is that you want to eat your meal peacefully and not be bothered every five minutes by a passing friend, but yet you also enjoy the accumulated company of dozens of people eating and brooding all around you.
La Sierra
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this place. They do have a wonderful beef burger and the pastry section and supermarket inside is heavenly but they have some serious issues. For starters, they could make the positive step of firing every single waitress there because they are all completely useless. They see you sit down and they stand by the door gossiping and scowling at everyone. After a few minutes, they will stroll over painfully slowly dragging their feet and just stand there looking at you with a look bordering on contempt. Clearly a smile or a greeting would endanger their health because none is ever forthcoming. None of these women should be employed anywhere, let alone a respectable restaurant in the center of town. It is an injustice that must be righted sooner or later.
I don’t like to go to La Sierra because it is a depressing snapshot of the abysmal customer service in this country and bodes ill for the future. The burger also takes too long and the women just stand there watching you which is very creepy and fairly annoying. I hope to God they get rid of them soon.
A burger and a soda usually makes you 2,500 francs poorer which is manageable if it wasn’t for the crap service and the possibility of having your meal interrupted by someone you don’t want to see (passers-by can spot you from outside the restaurant)
Karibu
Karibu have what is probably the most outstanding buffet in Kigali and it comes in at a decent 1,700 francs. The catch is, you get it on a plate that is smaller than the norm. Cheeky! This is when you learn how to pile your plate with the efficiency of an exact science. I'm very fond of Karibu and their food but by Jupiter the joke has gone on long enough-give us bigger plates.
I’m not exactly a food connoisseur. After all I’ve been frighteningly skinny for most of my life and it was only last year that I hit seventy kilos after becoming particularly enamored with my mother’s porridge. Once in a restaurant, I tend to just order a plate of fries and because I’m not particularly fond of meat (I like to tell people I’m a ‘wannabe’ vegetarian’ but I’m not really joking)I’d probably make a terrible restaurant critic. However ignorance has never stopped anybody before and its dammn well not going to stop me. So I’m taking it upon myself to tackle Kigali’s dysfunctional restaurants. It’s not so much the food as the service which is often quite shockingly lacking so my lack of appreciation of good food will not be a particular handicap. Or maybe it will-frankly who cares?
Legends:
The only restaurant in Kigali in which you could probably be assured of good, quick service is Legends. I first noticed this when I went with a friend some months ago and the waiter turned out to be so over-attentive that you could hardly tie your shoelaces without his input. This may have been because my dinner companion was evidently a very attractive woman or it may have been because this is indeed Legends ethos. Either way the service was outstanding and the view from the window was pretty wicked as well. The candle hurriedly brought to our table suggested that the waiter thought this was a date and I didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise as the poor guy was working so bloody hard. I was also appreciative of the art that was on the walls-any restaurant that tries to marry abstract art and hamburgers surely cant go wrong. It’s a clever ploy to make you think you are picking up a bit of culture.
So what were we going to have? Legend’s prices were eye-watering but I recommended the envelope du poulet to my friend. This exotically-named dish is basically chapatti wrapped around soft pieces of chicken. It’s not only ridiculously filling, but astoundingly tasty as well-and this is coming from a man who does not particularly appreciate meat. My friend trusted my judgment and as she scanned the drinks list, I dithered over my own choice. What is it about menus that they render you paralyzed by giving you too much choice? And worse, the long flowery descriptions of each dish meant that even for a fast-reader, my progress reading the menu was slow. The word ‘marinated’ appeared to be the star of the show as it is on many menus. Some of the dishes sounded like titles for Damien Hirst’s art pieces. As he asked me what I would like to drink, I had the sudden urge to mumble “We want the finest wines available to humanity and we want them now….” but I feared the reference would be lost and I would just look silly. I ordered a petit mutzig which at 800 francs, I could only assume had a few drops from the fountain of life. My friend asked for a glass of red wine. I wasn’t sure which one of us was Whitnail.
I finally settled on the intore burger which was more pocket-friendly although I was miffed to see it in the children’s section. The meal arrived promptly and we got to work. My friend who is usually charming and eloquent quickly became reduced to mono-syllables during consumption of the envelope. My burger meanwhile was solid and unspectacular but very effective-like Michael Carrick in the Manchester United midfield. Conversation which had started out witty and rambling was briefly suspended as we became mindless automatons to the culinary masters. Space-time became noticeably more wobbly.
My friend considered leaving a tip of 2,000 francs and I was aghast. “That is way too much!” I protested. Even for excellent service, that was over-kill. We snapped out of our stupor long enough to pay the bill and head off into the night.
Bonjour Café Resto
Despite the uninspiring name, Café Resto is at least a step ahead of Fido Dido which had owned the premises before and which had clearly believed very strongly in minimalism as a concept. I went there with my brother for lunch one hot afternoon and while he decided to risk the buffet, I settled down for my lunchtime read with the menu wondering idly how it would end. Would there be a killer twist on the last page?
As I cruised through –it was not as interesting as the Legends menu but it was decent although the characters were a little dodgy- I stumbled upon an interesting oddity. They were offering a ‘Hum sandwich’ and a variety of other ‘hum’ based products. I was mystified-what kind of sandwich was this? Did it hum as soon as it was placed on the plate? I wanted no part of it.
The waiter proved very elusive dashing from table to table and conveniently forgetting me In the corner waving my hand and shouting ‘Excusez!’ I briefly wished that my attractive friend who had accompanied me to Legends Restaurant had been present- I would have got much better service. The service was pretty shit, but in Kigali, that is the norm. My brother came back with his plate piled high with delicious looking food. A battalion of flies began to take a keen interest in our business-never a good sign. The restaurant is partly outdoors (wait, does that sound right?) so keeping out the flies would require the restaurant equivalent of the great wall of China. I’m fairly sure the Chinese didn’t build it to protect their noodles.
When the waiter finally arrived, I gave the menu one last look and looked up at him with a serious and pensive look in my eye.
“I’ll have a plate of fries” I told him.
UTC-Food court
The food court is a good place in a kind of bland corporate way. You can sit there and almost feel like you are in the center of Kigali watching dozens of people walk in and out every few seconds. The menu is unpretentious but meatier (metaphorically) than Bonjour Café and everything is spelled right. I briefly toyed with the idea of just ordering a plate of fries, but I figured I needed to be a bit more adventurous with food. It was a very sandwich-heavy menu and everyone around me appeared to be eating a sandwich.
I ordered a cheese sandwich and my brother ordered something a lot more exotic-sounding but which was basically a sandwich as well. Our drinks arrived fairly quickly but the waitress was one of those who was not going to smile unless she was under duress. Our meals arrived in about fifteen minutes and the sandwich was quite good although the fact that I was starving may have contributed to this. A bar of soap might have received three stars if it had arrived on my plate. In any event, the bill came to around 3,000 which was manageable. The paradox about the food court is that you want to eat your meal peacefully and not be bothered every five minutes by a passing friend, but yet you also enjoy the accumulated company of dozens of people eating and brooding all around you.
La Sierra
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this place. They do have a wonderful beef burger and the pastry section and supermarket inside is heavenly but they have some serious issues. For starters, they could make the positive step of firing every single waitress there because they are all completely useless. They see you sit down and they stand by the door gossiping and scowling at everyone. After a few minutes, they will stroll over painfully slowly dragging their feet and just stand there looking at you with a look bordering on contempt. Clearly a smile or a greeting would endanger their health because none is ever forthcoming. None of these women should be employed anywhere, let alone a respectable restaurant in the center of town. It is an injustice that must be righted sooner or later.
I don’t like to go to La Sierra because it is a depressing snapshot of the abysmal customer service in this country and bodes ill for the future. The burger also takes too long and the women just stand there watching you which is very creepy and fairly annoying. I hope to God they get rid of them soon.
A burger and a soda usually makes you 2,500 francs poorer which is manageable if it wasn’t for the crap service and the possibility of having your meal interrupted by someone you don’t want to see (passers-by can spot you from outside the restaurant)
Karibu
Karibu have what is probably the most outstanding buffet in Kigali and it comes in at a decent 1,700 francs. The catch is, you get it on a plate that is smaller than the norm. Cheeky! This is when you learn how to pile your plate with the efficiency of an exact science. I'm very fond of Karibu and their food but by Jupiter the joke has gone on long enough-give us bigger plates.
posted by Minzo at 2:33 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home