My initial placement wasn’t going particularly well, so one
Friday morning I found myself at the offices of ANPPCAN Uganda Chapter, to
discuss a potential placement with them for the remainder of my time in Uganda.
The meeting went well and since their offices were a lot closer to my flat I
decided to walk home.
I wanted to do the walk to see how long it would take should
I wish to get a bit more exercise in the future. I was also interested in
grabbing some lunch at one of the nearby establishments in Kisimenti Square, a
five minute diversion from my route. It was because of this that I found myself
in the outdoor area of The Bistro just after 12 pm.
The establishment itself is pretty nice and it’s fairly new.
Sadly the rest of the area leaves a lot to be desired. The square itself is
home to many bars, restaurants, cafes, shops etc., but the actual square bit is
actually a car park. Beyond the car park is a massive construction site where
Knight Frank are building a large mall. Sadly nothing could be done to drown
out the noise of the plant and construction machinery.
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| Stephen Fry checking out the construction site from the car park |
Undeterred by the endless cacophony I ordered and Ultimate
Burger and a Coke. The Ultimate Burger got its name from the fact that it was a
beef and pork patty with homemade burger sauce. It came with fries and two
home-made chilli relishes. Interestingly the chilli relishes both had serious
kick to them. Obviously many peri-peri chillies had gone in to their
construction and after dunking my chips in them a few times it was enough for
me. The fries were also pretty good French fries, nicer than most I’ve had
here.
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| What the mall will look like. They've got the traffic all wrong |
On to the meat of the review, the patty was cooked to medium
as I’d asked, well-seasoned and quite tasty seeing as it was a pig / cow combination.
It wasn’t as juicy as New York Kitchen’s. The bun was the usual, slightly
glazed, slightly seeded buns that a lot of places get their bread from. Nothing
special, but holds together quite well. The sauce was OK as well, but again
nothing standout about it. 3 out 5, would try a beef burger next time with a
healthy dose of add-ons such as gorgonzola, bacon and the elusive jalapenos.
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| Terrace |
Suitably full I walked the rest of the way home and pegged
it at about 30 minutes taking my diversion in to account. I’ve made many more
journeys like that over that last few weeks trying to diversify my eating
habits and to get a few more reviews out. Despite there being a reasonable
amount of choice available it has necessitated several repeat visits to
diversify my menu choices. From now on there will be multiple food reviews most
of the time.
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| Interior |
The second time I went to the Bistro was after work one day.
On Mondays to Fridays they have happy hours, so with a nice double G & T in
hand I nibbled on some bread sticks with the homemade chilli relishes whilst
waiting a reasonable amount of time for my order. The relishes were just as
potent as before so I had to be careful with them.
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| Plain Bistro burger |
As I mentioned earlier I was pretty clear on what I was
going to order, and eventually the beef burger with bacon, gorgonzola and
jalapenos arrived. Fries were slightly worse than the last time, but still
perfectly edible. The beef patty in my opinion was juicier and tastier than the
Ultimate burger’s beef and pork combo. Jalapenos were a bit lack-lustre, but
added a reasonable amount of heat. The bacon was fine, nowhere near as good as
New York Kitchen’s (reviews to follow), the gorgonzola however was amazing,
stinky and strong, just how I like it. Overall I preferred this combination to
the previous effort, but find it hard from separating it score-wise. 3 out of
5.
