Eat Like Ushi

Deep in the heart of Africa lies Galito's, their local answer to the Western world's Nando's. I still think London Nando's (tried at O2 arena and Shoreditch) is better quality than those I've had in Melbourne possibly due to them being generally large sit in restaurants complete with table service.

In Lusaka, it is located along a small section of fast food eat-in or takeaways right next to a petrol station. The menu seems identical to Nando's - grilled chicken with a choice of spiciness, chips, bean salad and coleslaw. There are bottles of periperi sauce to lather your food in more flavour.

Compared to London Nando's, the chicken is slightly thinner with similar flavour. Chips weren't as crispy. The salads seemed the same. The price is naturally much much cheaper.

Neither are similar to the periperi chicken I had in Lisbon, but they'll happily do for a tasty meal.

In the middle of the township of Livingstone, directly opposite some of the shopping stalls, there is a big white sign for the Wonder Bake bakery. It's a very large space almost like an auditorium with plain tables and chairs and a long selection of breads and cooked foods. You can select from breakfast eggs, burgers, sandwiches, meals or simple breads.

The addition of free wifi makes it an ideal place to spend breakfast or lunch or breakfast into lunch and choose whatever type of foods appeal and catch up with the world.

Fried chicken, beef curry, rice and a raisin scone completed the very late brunch covering the crispy, soft, sweet, spicy and hot.

Recommended.

After the adventurous buses and exploration of Livingstone and Victoria Falls, there was one more night in the Lusaka Backpackers before flying out to Nairobi. There wasn't much in the way of particular places to eat at and I felt taking a taxi somewhere (which would have been to one of the further away shopping malls if I did), Chit Chat was a close walkable distance and had at least a few favourable comments online.

The evening walk through the streets included past an armed friendly security guard, along dark streets with lights and into what looked like more suburban neighbourhood.

On this evening all the streets and also the cafe was quite empty. Pork ribs ZMB60 were plentiful and had a nice BBQ sauce. They weren't the most tender but satisfying enough. Imported prawn curry ZMB60 were small and came served with mash and vegetables. The food was adequate but nothing more - a closeby meal for a casual evening.

Walking back to the backpackers, the streets had become more populous with women standing under trees and on street corners. It looked as though this was the street area after dark also.

There aren't many food places in Livingstone full stop, let alone the number that interested me. There are a few local-looking places that seemed safe but I think Cafe Zambezi attracts a more tourist crowd simply due to the variety of ingredients and dishes including local and African specialties. Additionally it's a clean place with a nice outdoor area, wooden furniture and plants.

In the early afternoon I stopped by to scope out the menu and couldn't help but try a quick cooling snack of banana fritter and icecream. This proved a good opportunity to read the specialties and be impressed by options such as caterpillars and crocodile spare ribs. It was an easy decision to return in the evening for dinner.

- Peri-peri Crocodile Bites - Zambezi river crocodile in a thin spiced sauce;
- Jollof Rice (rice cooked in tomatoes, spices & with an array of vegetables) - West African version of paella;
- Mbuzi Na Pa Malacha (goat cooked in foil with onions, peppers & spices) - traditional Zambian recipe with tender goat although a bit too many bones. Served with peppers and separately okra and rape vegetable stews.

Overall a good meal with exciting ingredients and many other dishes I'd like to try. Easily a great choice for dinner after a day of Zambezi river rafting or Victoria Falls viewing.

During the first morning in Zambia, we walked from the hotel toward town. Enroute there was a older lady grilling cassava over charcoal and sprinkled with salt. It was a simple introduction to food in Africa. I was hoping this would start a nice trip to the City Market and there would be some nice street foods to sample. Unfortunately the only things I found there were a wide variety of vegetables, fruit, fish and meat but not much cooked things.

A walk back through town led to Fajema which seemed the first opportunity to try a variety of local specialties - nshima and the ubiquitous fried chicken. The place had a simple diner setting and a few people stopped by outside the window to stare or ask for money.

- 2 pieces chicken & chips - chicken not too dry, flavour similar to a mild form of KFC. Standard chips and coleslaw;
- nshima & fish - plain grilled fish, not too dry, served on top of a few stewed vegetable dishes including the slightly bitter rape national dish.

The first experience with nshima was interesting. It takes a particular skill to use one hand to tear and roll a small section, create a pocket in the middle, hold it in your palm and fill it with ingredients. Nshima itself is a very plain flour and water mix like a smooth blend of slightly textured playdough. I can't say I prefer it to rice, but it's different and makes eating interesting.

I'm not sure where I came across this name. It isn't in any of the guide books and looking online now suggests that it is closed. It wasn't a particularly convenient area either, requiring a solid walk west of the city centre. I didn't feel unsafe but I can see how some might wandering through dark streets with only a few strangers and street lights for company.

The place was sold to me as modern tapas and the setting really felt like the downstairs of a family home. There were tables around the sides, a stairs that I wasn't sure where they lead, and a central area where the food was cooked.

- "Calabres" Cheese Croquette €1.5
- Mini Truffled Duck Burger with Caramelised Onions €3
- Coca Pork Tenderloin, Torta del Caser Cheese & Spinach €3
- Galician octopus on mash €9.5
- Tarta de queso €5

Overall the meal was reasonable without being as exciting or outstanding as I hoped. The duck burger was probably the one I was most interested in (during my slider phase) but didn't deliver a strong sense of truffles nor duck meat.

During the safari, every lunch was planned to either be at our tented camp or a (less exciting) packed lunch for the road. One day I asked the driver Freddie if there was anywhere to have local food for lunch. He was quite happy to arrange a nice "local lunch" which was cheap and included a walking tour of the village. This took place just after a morning tour at Lake Manyara National Park.

It was an incredibly cheap lunch with a large amount of food for us 2 guests, Freddie and our tour guide and also the mama cook herself. Everything was cooked over wood fire in large pots and the variety was large. It included lots of vegetables, some fish and an excellent pulao rice dish.

This was probably my favourite meal in the entire safari.

It wasn't easy trying to find somewhere to have brunch in Nairobi. Considering there was limited time and things to see, it seemed easy to head to the Westgate shopping mall.

Artcaffe looked like a nice brunch setting where the expats and foreigners came. The food was reasonably nice. The waitress was tall, dark and looked like a model.

The mall itself didn't have much else to see. Out the front I was attracted to a lady cooking corn but unfortunately it was uncooked, dry and tasteless.

Sadly this was the same shopping wall that was attacked by gunmen two weeks later.

Kutna Hora is a small town and a short trip from Prague. The main (and possibly only) reason people visit here is to see the ossuary (or kostnice). It is a morbid creative decoration of bones and skulls that I believe is more for art than anything religious or war related.

After this visit, there's a small town to look around before finding the appropriate bus back to Prague.

I only had one place on my eat list - Ruthardska which is a medieval bar. After walking past it and seeing some of the medieval decoration I didn't feel like that was where I wanted to go. I continued to walk around and eventually settled on a random little restaurant.

I settled on Chicken breast stuffed with ham, blue cheese & mushrooms, served with cream sauce and a side order of fries. The chicken was nicely cooked and the blue cheese not too powerful. It was a satisfying simple meal and what I expect would be pub style Czech.

Cafe Sperl definitely wasn't on my final list of places in Vienna. I had noted in my Rough Guide that it had "decent" food (and coffee) but there were other things higher up for the two days there. Funnily enough the reason I ended up there was because I met another backpacker in the hostel and she said it was on her list more for the atmosphere as being one of the historical cafes in town.

I'd already taken down Figlmuller and Steirereck, and the foodhall of Julius Meinl was more a place for upmarket expensive gourmet items rather than a meal place in itself. So I thought why not?

The cafe does have a remarkably ornate interior and I can see why people come here. Next to us sat an older couple who were more surprised by my new friend's ability to speak German than us being there.

We ended up sharing Tafelspitz (boiled beef, potato hash, carrot) and apparently the national dish of Austria. Cafe Sperl may have even won some national awards for the best version back in the 1990s or early 2000s. The dish was nice and the meat soft, but overall I couldn't see the big appeal of it. It's possible the unexpected social nature of the meal disturbed my opinion.

I wouldn't mind coming back again and trying it again.