Description: Tanzania – 01/12/09It seemed that all the African restaurants I was finding in Manchester were West African –
Nigerian,
Ghanaian, even
Ivorian. The British link to East Africa did not appear to be reflected in the Manchester dining scene at all. No Ugandan, no Kenyan (despite the fact that Jomo Kenyatta did in fact visit the city for the 1945 Pan-African Congress). And then we spotted
Kilimanjaro Café in Moss Side. Its sign promised ‘East African food’. Of course Paul and I had to check it out!
First visit was a bit of a busted flush. It turns out they only serve food between 1-3pm daily. At other times it seems to function as a bit of a social centre for local Africans – at any rate the place was crammed full of people playing and watching games of dominoes. Those serving times ain’t the most convenient in the world. So Paul decided he would pick up some food one lunchtime and then come over to mine to eat it.
As Paul tells it, the lady behind the counter was very welcoming, and once he explained what our intentions were she picked out a variety of food for us. A quick zap in the microwave back at mine and we were ready to eat.
The main part of the meal we decided was rice. They did some very nicely cooked rice, with multi-coloured grains, slightly sweetened with raisins, carrot and onion. Really, it was like a pillau /
pillow. With this we had some lamb cutlets, and a root vegetable stew – potato, carrot, onion etc. It was in many ways quite like a Lancashire hash (but minus the corned beef). So far, pretty nice. Certainly nothing to scare the children.
With this we were also provided a tray of pretty insipid salad. And also a tray of stewed spinach, almost identical to that I had eaten during my
Eritrean meal. And also a little cup of a very vivid green puree. It looked like very finely pulped mushy peas in its almost fluorescent grass-green hue. But a sniff gave it away – this was a very strong green chilli sauce. A teaspoon sent us running for the taps to get a drink. It was
hot!The last component to the meal was the ever present starch item. In this case it was
ugali. This was a slightly translucent white mass made of maize meal that had solidified into the shape of its container. A blast in the microwave and mushing it up with a fork revealed it to be pretty tasteless, like overcooked white rice. Something I think I can probably survive without in my diet.
Still, other than that, the food wasn’t bad, and we got a lot of it for £10. Again, it is another African venue that looks unpromising from the outside, but where the warm welcome more than makes up for any short-comings!
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