Day 11, Lunch at the Office, Dinner at Fake Nandos… Yaay!

The Internet connection is purposely down at the Hostel, there will be blood! We should get a better connection tomorrow, at a price. Connection at the office is still has been as terrible as always, but surprisingly spritely this morning. Still no concrete work to do yet, but should improve tomorrow afternoon. Plus everyone has been busy with a visit today and tomorrow from a representative of an international development agency that has funded some recent projects of ours.

View from the balcony toward downtown

Lunch was a late one today at 2.30pm and consisted of rice, matoke, poncho, sweet potatoes, and some other starchy vegetable. Lashings of Peri-Peri sauce to taste of course. The meat today was of the mystery variety and came in groundnut sauce. I wanted to take a few pics, both of the usual lunch and the groundnut sauce concoction, but didn’t want to appear mocking. The sauce is quite revolting looking grey slop, so worthy of a photo. Obviously same as every other lunch, but I had a Mountain Dew for dessert. It has to be 2 out of 5 due to lack of beans or peas.

Closer shot of downtown area

My desk in the office

For Dinner, Hope and I ventured into town for a drink and a bite to eat. With massive choice of cuisine on offer, I had to insist on a trip to Fake Nandos. It had to be done. After a cheap but quite long boda ride we alighted at the Ugandan Parliament. I was going to take a picture, but there wasn’t a lot to see from the high walls and security gates, plus I didn’t want to have my camera confiscated by the nearby soldiers.

On the way towards the bars and restaurants, I needed to get some cash out, but was initially thwarted by Barclays, who blatantly lied and said my bank refused the transaction. No worries at any of the other banks though. Short walk later we arrived outside Fake Nandos. Unfortunately it looked like, despite the sign still being there, it was now a reasonable local bar / restaurant. We went in there for a drink before finally deciding what to do for Dinner. It was cocktail night, but the offer was a shockingly poor buy 2 get 1 free, definitely no Dirty Martini.

Outside Fake Nandos

After we finished the beer, we ambled for a short while and decided to have a look at Broods, a bakery underneath the bar. On getting closer it became apparent that Brood was part of a small food court affair with an ice cream place, Chicken Royale, Pizza Royale, and sandwiched in between the two Royales, Fake Nandos. I felt like Indiana Jones finding the golden idol at the start of Raiders.

The menu bears striking similarities to Real Nandos, but there’s no choice of choice of sauce, so no Mango and Lime for me, but I can buy the authentic stuff at the supermarket if need be. Orders placed we took a seat nearby. I surprisingly missed the usual Nando’s banter, “Yes I’ve been here before”, “No I don’t want any olives or nuts to snack on while I’m waiting”.

A short while later our meals of chicken breast burgers with fries arrived. Hope had an additional side of coleslaw which was pretty good. I’m quite fussy with coleslaw (I’m obviously not fussy with other food stuffs) and this was good, not too creamy and with a hint of mint.

Fake Nandos Chicken Burgers in all their glory

The fries were adequate and a lot better with the chilli sauce. I didn’t try the orange tomato ketchup. The burgers as you can see were interesting. It was a soft roll not like Real Nandos crusty prego rolls. The chicken breast was a proper chicken breast mildly spiced, but was very thin, obviously from one of the scraggly small chickens that are everywhere here. Taste wise it was pretty good and for 16,000 UGX (£4) not a bad meal. One of the better meals I’ve had so far, 3 out of 5.

Back to the hostel and it was time to take my first boda ride at night. To be honest it’s no different than during the day. I got to see more of town and as we scooted down one road I’m sure I recognised it from the recent Top Gear special. It definitely had the same gridlocked traffic. It always gets a bit hairy / interesting at times and this boda driver was more aggressive than most. We made good time on the relatively long journey back, but close to the final valley at Mengo, Game Over.

That was the name of today’s matatu of the day.

P.S. I’ve somehow lost my right side detachable cheek pad from my helmet, not the end of the World. If anyone has a spare or knows how I can get one cheap, let me know.