Dinner, Nanjing, Kololo, Kampala

One of my friends who was back in Kampala had a hankering for Chinese food, so we met up with another friend to go to Nanjing in swanky Kololo. It had reasonable reviews in various expat forums so thought it worth a look. I arrived late, but not as late as my fellow diners. I’d piled in to a bowl of g-nuts and was well through my first bottle of Nile before they arrived.

Garden at the front of the hotel / restaurant

The Nanjing restaurant is part of the Nanjing hotel so ambience is a little lacking. It was also quite quiet on a Tuesday evening, but did reasonable business with a couple of tables of Chinese diners, a couple of African, and one Russian. The menu was quite sparse compared to most Chinese takeaways back home. The names of the dishes didn’t do much to inform you of what they were like. Everything also seemed to be about the same price irrespective of whether it was a starter or a main course.

Pic representative

That said the spring rolls were a sight cheaper so I went for one veggie and one chicken spring roll. There was some soy and two chilli sauces for dipping. They were average, same as you could get in Tesco’s back home, but a perfectly enjoyable appetiser. For main course we’d got a massive bucket of steamed rice to share and each of us went for a different dish. I went for Hot Beef with Onions. It was a dry dish with chillies and various spices to accompany the strips of tender beef and white onions. It was nice and tasty, reasonable heat and not over-seasoned, the strips of beef as I mentioned were nice and tender strips of fillet. I would have preferred a dish with a bit of sauce though. I tried some of the other dishes and they were similarly well cooked and tasty.

Wouldn't be the same without red neon

All in all a good Chinese meal, nothing exceptional, but tasty and well executed. 3 out of 5. We followed up our meal with a quick beer at nearby Mish Mash resolving to meet up there the following day as they were showing The Avengers at the outdoor cinema.