The Carnivore Restaurant

It has been a while since we wrote our blog, which begs the question (asked in a weary voice) ‘where to begin? Where to begin?’

Well, let me start at the beginning. We had a house in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills. The equator runs through these hills, a hundred miles to the north. But more pertinently, a few miles away is a restaurant. And not just any restaurant, but the Carnivore! A place that had to be visited before we departed for Togo.

You will obviously know that Kenya is proud of its carnivores. Lions, hyenas, cheetahs, et al., compete to see who can eat the cutest/most baby animals and get the most face time on television, or snuggle up to Ussain Bolt (for those who don’t know Ussain Bolt raced against a cheetah in Nairobi a few weeks ago).

Well, at the Carnivore restaurant, similar things happen, (but without the TV). It is an eaterie dedicated to meat, and doesn’t do vegetables. Wonderful.

We went with James and his in-laws. As things like this should be male only occasions, all women (with the exception of Joanna who grew a beard for the day) were left behind. Babbling excitedly we entered the Restaurant, passing a big barbeque on which a vast amount of meat was roasting, before being shown to our table on which sat a small flag which we were told we should lower when we ‘surrendered’. We just stole it. Brilliantly, the chairs were zebra print, even though animal rights fairies had managed to get zebra (and most other bush meat) removed from the menu a while back. Now you have to go to South Africa if you want to eat zebra.

The principle is that you sit around a table, and joints of meat (all, and I mean all, the usual characters, as well as ostrich and crocodile) are brought to the table on Maasi swords and carved directly onto the plate by a profusion of waiters.

We ate until we couldn’t move, James wining the endurance award. Then we had pudding. Then we went home. Then we slept. And once the food had finished digesting we left for Ouagadougou (a gap, admittedly, of a few days).