2 more burger reviews and pics

Supper, Cafe Javas, Kampala

Last Friday after a particularly dull, but short week at work a few of us hostel-ites were at a bit of a loose end food wise and with no particular idea about what to eat. This dilemma was easily resolved as everyone decided to vote for the nearby Cafe Javas. Since I hadn't been there yet, had heard good things about the food, and sampled their very good chocolate cake, I was happy to go along.

So the five of us piled on to three bodas and made the short, 2,000 UGX (50p) ride to the City Oil petrol station and supermarket, that this particular branch of Javas was attached.

Cafe Javas is a small Ugandan only (I think) chain of cafe / restaurants. It's not the cheapest joint in town, but the quality is consistently good and apparently it's not a bad cup of coffee. Apart from the horrors masquerading as coffee that I tried up in Amuria I haven't had a coffee since. I don't think I'm going to start again anytime soon.

After a quick perusal of the menu and a switch of tables to be near a power point. Oh, I forgot that the main reason for us going out for food was because there was no power at the hostel. It was like that all day and continued until after midnight. Since the 'assertive' Aussie owner has been away, standards have been slipping. Showers are a lottery, one day a bare trickle of luke-warm water, the next a torrent of boiling hot, and the next a steady stream of freezing cold. A good strong, Goldilocks temperature shower is one of my greatest pleasures in life, I long for the day when I can experience one again.

Anyway, I was recommended the double burger by a friend and so went for that with a Coke to wash it down. The other orders at the table were a pie (it was a pasty), quesadillas (not sure what the filling was, but it came with rice and beans), a bean and cheese burrito without cheese (lactose intolerant), and another double burger.

Service was pretty good and speedy for here, the manager (I believe Malaysian) was particularly attentive and after a short while our food arrived.

Picture representative of meal

On to the meat of review. The chips were 'Home fries' so liberally sprinkled with Cajun spices, a bit too crunchy for my liking, I'd have preferred more potatoey fluffiness. Liberal dashs of Tabasco livened up proceedings. There was a side serving of coleslaw, it was satisfactory as it was lacking any bite. Fake Nandos is still in the lead for best coleslaw so far.

Obviously as it was a double burger there were two reasonable sized medium-thickness patties. Maybe my palate is getting accustomed to the bland food, but I found the meat over seasoned with pepper. The bun was a pretty good sesame seed variety and the salad was OK, nothing to write home about (which is strangely exactly what I'm doing). It was supposed to have chili mayo, but instead had a sweet onion relish. Not bad, but not what I was expecting. Overall 3 out of 5. Not bad at all and will go back occasionally as it's not the cheapest though at 16,000 UGX (£4) cheap by London standards.

Supper, Mish Mash, Kampala

Despite being in Uganda for 6 weeks I hadn't yet visited Mish Mash. It's a bar / restaurant / art gallery / market / chill out garden in upmarket Kololo and is apparently pretty popular with expats. I was due to go there a few weeks back as two of the hostel-ites were due to do some DJ-ing there, however after a robust discussion about the market size of Drum and Bass aficionados in Kampala their sets were cancelled and there was a bit of bad blood between my comrades in arms and the 'Philistine' management of the aforementioned establishment. I'm sure it's all blown over by now.

So, a couple of days ago I was due to meet another volunteer who came through the same placement organisation as myself. She furnished me with lots of useful, honest advice before I came to Kampala, so was looking forward to thanking her in person. We'd initially arranged to meet on a Monday, which is 2 for 1 main meals night. This was very unfortunately cancelled as one of her friends was very ill with Malaria. Thankfully she's doing better now, so we rearranged for Wednesday evening which was Burger Night and Moonlight Cinema night.

Main bar bit

 After arriving at Mish Mash I can see why it's pretty popular, it's a very good space mostly in gardens on all sides of the main building. I went for my Nile, but was tempted when I saw that they had Windhoek imported. Maybe next time. After a brief text describing what I currently look like, I'm going for the superb Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane look from the first Iron Man film, but fatter obviously. Vicky tracked me down so I went to another part of the garden to meet the rest of her friends.

The resemblance is uncanny

After having a good natter for a while and with the evenings movie about to kick off I ordered Burger Nights special offer of a beef burger and chips and a Nile for 22,000 UGX (£5.50). I customised the burger with bacon and blue cheese for another 8,000 UGX. So all in 30k UGX for a burger, chips and a beer. Almost the same price as Tommi's back in London, so a LOT to live up to. There was one other order of a chicken burger shared between two and no other orders for the table.

An absolute age later and the food arrived. We were already through some weird black and white cartoon and a dodgy Simpson's advert for THX sound systems (I don't think we had a genuine THX certified system in the garden) so the evening's feature presentation of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds was about to start when I was tucking into my chips. The chips were pretty good gastropub style chips. Crunchy on the outside fluffy on the inside. I even had a pot of ketchup and mayo, the mayo the first I've had since arriving and really good to dip the chips into

Seating area for the open air cinema

So onto the burger, it had a good plain bun with a crispy crust, not quite a sourdough bun, but similar in texture and overall composition. Salad was adequate, bacon good, but not enough of it and the blue cheese was brilliant, strong, stinky and pungent exactly what I look for in my blue cheese. Cheese is an expensive luxury in Uganda with the crap stuff being relatively expensive. I'll need to find out where they source their cheese and hunt down some of the blue stuff. The patty itself was pretty good, thick, medium cooked and only slightly too salty. Still the whole ensemble worked well and was easily the best burger I've had in Kampala so far. 3.5 out of 5. 

Still there are plenty of other places to try and I'm sure I'll be back to Mish Mash to try out other items from their menu. The establishment is pretty cool and you could easily while away a lazy afternoon and evening their. The only downside is that in being in an upmarket neighbourhood the local Carl's try for ridiculous sums of money to get away from the area. 20k UGX for a journey that cost 5k on the way, he was having a giraffe and wouldn't budge. Still his loss is another Carl's gain after a minute's walk down the road.