Eat and make merry: 2019 best hits…Er…eats
By People Reporter, December 21, 2019With the holidays comes a lot of travel, and ‘places to eat’ followed by the town one is headed to is a cult search favourite among travellers. Our foodie NAILANTEI NORARI gives us some cues from her top five best eats of the year
What informs your decision to travel? For most travellers it is the experiences that a place embodies, which include culture, food and major sites or attractions. Where to eat in the town one is headed to is a cult search favourite among sojourners. Tourist diarrhea, the dreaded phenomena where a town’s cuisine agrees with you less than the toilets do is not a deterrent enough, especially for food heads like me. As much as I stopped my gallivanting around the country and the globe pretty early in the year, there are some special places with even more special food that I would not mind visiting again. Hope these gems inspire you to travel and most importantly, to eat and eat well.
OLD MAN AND THE SEA
I love Ernest Hemingway and anything that in any way alludes to him. This is a cozy restaurant in Malindi named after Hemingway’s short novella of the same title. The restaurant has beautiful Arabic architecture with beautiful arches and an even more beautiful interior featuring a line drawing of the old man and the sea on the wall, as well as wall hangings that evoke the sea. They make sumptuous seafood from fresh local ingredients and at an affordable price too. The service is pretty quick. It is the place to go for an intimate lunch of two or a noisy group lunch.
ZESTY ANTELOPE
It would be remiss of me to not mention at least one good place one can eat in expansive Zambia. In Livingstone, there is a wide array of such places, from Italian pizza joints to Indian food spots. Zest serves African food with a Zambian flair. And let no one tell you that African cuisine is a monolith. It is not; it might be similar in a way, but it is largely different, both in ingredients as well as in the way it is prepared. Zest serves well-made fries, a delicious grilled quail and an even tastier kudu (type of antelope). It was my first time to eat kudu, but it was well worth it. Washing it all down with a cold glass of Moshi beer is an experience I would not mind to indulge in again.
THE FISH TRAP
La Digue in Seychelles is a quaint little island that makes you think time has slowed down, literally. With buggies and bicycles as the only mode of transport and blue water all around, this is a place I would not mind relocating to. Every weekday at four o’clock, fishermen ring a gong, which is a call for the locals to go to the fish market, where one can purchase fresh seafood at pretty fair prices too. I almost bought fresh seafood to bring back to Kenya. Fish Trap restaurant is right next to the beach. They serve fresh seafood and their portions are quite generous. I had rice with steamed fish wrapped in a plantain leaf with a starter of a salad made with fresh smoked fish.
THE NEW MAMA OLIECH
If you live in Nairobi and you have not tried the food here, you need to. It is worth the hype and then some. I have visited the Hurlingham branch as well as the newly opened Westlands one. I prefer the latter since it is open and I am averse to feeling like I’m in a concrete jungle, even if in all reality I indeed am. I have not yet gotten used to ordering brown ugali, I am sorry my Luhya friends, I am a disgrace to all Africans everywhere. But I am getting pretty good at eating a fish and leaving its skeleton clean. Fine, I still cannot manage to eat the head, I am sorry my Luo sisters and brothers, I am working on being your pride and joy. The food is sumptuous, the service fast, the experience authentic. I would be willing to pay more for the same.
A TASTE OF GOLD
I have always wanted to taste gold; to eat it, taste affluence and document the experience, so that all the witches in my village know that they did not triumph. Inti, located on the 21st floor of the new building at Westlands roundabout known as One Africa, made this dream possible. I ate a dessert made with 24 carat gold, a chocolate dessert nonetheless. At Sh1,900, I think I can afford to shock the village witches a few more times this year. Inti serves great Peruvian-Japanese dishes. It has a beautiful space with reddish brown leaves and bamboo culms that remind me of fall. It is a fine dining restaurant that delivers on the promise of great food without the overpricing that Kenyans have come to associate with most restaurants, seeing as majority of patrons can afford to go for the gold, literally. Also, being on the 21st floor, it has an amazing view of the Nairobi skyline, and is ever booked. You actually have to make a reservation, you just don’t show up, otherwise it may be difficult to find a sitting spot.
HONOURABLE MENTION
Located off James Gichuru Road, right next to Lavington Mall, Pallet Café serves mean wings and even meaner burgers. I love their salads, especially when I want to do a cleanse. We have to enter 2020 with a healthy gut! You can pop into the café if you want to polish up on your sign language, as most of the servers are hearing impaired. If you would also want to polish up on some work, their Wi-Fi is quite fast too.
