Kigali: A 24 Hour City

Kigali is not so much a city that never sleeps, as, as Alex Turner might put it, a city that never wakes up. What qualifies it as a 24 hour city, is that a lot of visitors only end up spending 24 hours there. As a veteran of Kigali hotels I can confirm that the travelling aid dealers, overlanders, and gorilla hunters tend to make their stops in Kigali as short as possible, before venturing on to excitement elsewhere.

So, in the absence of any real new material (or content, as I believe the kids call it these days), here's a cut out and keep guide to where to eat if you're in Kigali for 24 hours.

High End
Are you a luxury gorilla tourist, or a high rolling World Bank aid monkey? Here's how to spend those dollars:

Breakfast:
The buffet at Serena is hard to beat, but if you're not staying there it will set you back at least $20. Otherwise try the Panorama Restaurant at the top of the Hotel Mille Collins. The buffet isn't as spectacular, but the view makes a great start to the day.

Lunch / Snacks:
The Novotel buffet is one of those places to go when you have money to burn. It isn't much fun though. Better is the Bourbon Cafe, with branches at the Union Trade Centre in town, and the MTN Centre in Nyarutarama. Excellent coffees come with free wi-fi, leather sofas, and an international menu (i.e. club sandwiches, salads and burgers)

Dinner (or 'tea' if you're from my neck of the woods)
Its a choice between Indian Khazana, for curry and fancy dress waiters, or Heaven for a quality, local sourced menu that changes with the seasons. Both restaurants are in Kiyovu and will set you back a minimum of $20 a head - more if you order wine.

Late night drinking:
Head down to Republika in Kiyovu for cocktails and beers with a view across the valley.


Mid-range
For the NGO workers, journalists and solo travellers looking for a hassle free bite.

Breakfast:
At the hotel, or why not stop in and pick up a pain au chocolat from the bakery at the Novotel or the Nakumatt at UTC.

Lunch:
La Sierra, near the banks in town does sandwiches, samosas, cheese pasties and a buffet. Eden garden a few doors down has a well regarded buffet. $10 will buy a decent Italian buffet at the Sol e Luna in Remera.

Dinner:
Back to Sol e Luna for a choice of about 50 pizzas, decent pasta and pitchers of red wine. For a broader menu, head to New Cactus in Kiyovu. A reasonably priced and very tasty buffet can be found at Chez Robert, across the road from the Hotel Mille Collines.

Late night drinking:
Fine dine or Karibu in town for a few beers, then on to Planete nightclub for a dance.

Budget:
Overlanders, backpackers, volunteers, save your pennies for the following.

Breakfast:
A cup of tea and a few biscuits. Who needs breakfast?

Lunch:
There are good buffets to be had at the Kigali Business Centre, Le Banjo in Remera, and at Nile Grill (Rue Kalisimbi, city centre)

Dinner:
Load up on meat quite cheaply at Carwash in Kimihurura, or grab a buffet at Karibu. Chez Lando's (Remera) brochettes come pretty cheap.

After hours drinking:
Stay at Carwash, or Chez Lando, or head over to Fine dine. New Cadillac for dancing.

Nakumatt

All hail the arrival of Nakumatt in Kigali.

For the uninitiated, Nakumatt is a successful Kenyan supermarket, that has recently opened itsfirst branch outside Kenya in the Union Trade Centre, smack in the middle of what passes for Kigali 'city centre'. They plan more openings around town soon. Rejoice.

Readers of Experimental Jifflings, or anyone who has shared a beer with me, may detect a whiff of hypocrisy here. I've been in the checkout queue to give the big supermarkets a kicking in the past, and I'll continue beat my little drum in future. But Nakumatt is a different case.

For one thing, it's Kenyan owned, starting out in Nakuru as a little store selling mattresses (hence the name Nakumatt). I'm pleased to see that the store in Kigali still sells mattresses. The real Nakumatt boom has only come in the last ten years, and they train and pay their employees well, and are an example of how East African business can do well in East Africa. Over in Dakar we have to make do with a grim monopoly of the French owned Casino supermarket chain.

Why is this good for Kigali? Well it's a firm kick up the backside to all the other supermarket owners who overcharge, underservice, and can't guarantee supplies. Nakumatt's economies of scale will bring a new diversity of products to the shelves, and will ensure keen prices. With any luck, Nakumatt's influence will overturn the poor service and silly prices that seem to be the accepted norm at most shops and restaurants in Kigali. Thats no excuse for the City Council to let them open a store on every corner (not that the City Council would ever, ever be open to any sort of persuasion), but a bit of exposure to an economy outside of the bubble is long overdue, and should sharpen everybody up.

And thank Nakumatt for one last thing: Those 8000 franc bottles of Domaine Bergon will be a thing of the past. Now we're entering a new era of Spanish and South african plonks in all the colours that go for less than 5 notes a bottle.

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In 1998 I rolled a trolley around a Nakumatt in Nairobi for the first time. We were there to fill up on supplies for 3 months of fieldwork under canvas, and it was an ideal one stop shop. I'd just come from Norfolk, UK, were I'd spent much of my time tramping around the Broads practicing my field skills. Roys of Wroxham (a supermarket hero) had provided me lunchtime sustenance on many a grey winter morning, so I was delighted to discover that my Nakumatt trolley proudly advertised 'Roys of Wroxham' on the handle. How the hell does one get a shopping trolley from East Anglia to Nairobi? That is one hell of a steal.

Uptight Eating

H2O Restaurant, Kiyovu
I like a nice bit of decking. Waitresses who stare are even more fun, but please close your mouth now. Brochettes, brochettes, brochettes, steak and chips, brochettes. Owner has got religion in a big way and is considering banning sales of alcohol in the restaurant as well as smoking. If you think that sounds like a good idea then you're probably on the wrong blog.

Recommended:

• The steak wasn't bad after all
• Try throwing peanuts into the gaping mouth of the waitress.

Avoid:

• If you're not comfortable with that whole creepy staring thing.
• If you want to smoke, drink, have fun...

Belvedere, Centre Ville, by the banks.
Uncertain as to where this fits into the Kigali scene. Despite swinging saloon doors the punters are conservative types. Perhaps they're too aloof and snooty to eat at Chez Lando, because they might have to put up with foreigners, and smoking, and smiling, and the little people not doing as they're told.

Recommended:

• It has saloon doors, that's quite good I suppose.
• Staff are cheerful, despite being inefficient and not entirely honest

Avoid:

• Toilets are a state
• Shoddy service
• Menu somewhat limited

Good Chips / Bad Chips

Restaurant Emeraude (Emerald Restaurant), Boulevard de l’Umuganda, behind FAO and UNHCR.
Being so close to the FAO offices they do a brisk lunchtime trade here. Staff seem ultra-friendly and helpful and there is a sense of pride in the establishment. A well priced menu is mostly the usual Franco-International stuff, but has one or two surprises from what looks like a Javanese cookbook, along with healthier options. Ignore the healthy stuff though - the chips are thick cut and full of flavour.

Recommendations:

• Friendly atmosphere and swift service
• Good chips, acceptable fish
• Plenty of parking space
• Buffet lunch during the week

Avoid:

• The chicken is like chewing an old slightly singed rope,

Passadena, Gikondo Nyenyeri
Done up like some sort of log cabin saloon, this out of the way venue has a funny sort of appeal. Its the kind of place where you might find someone miming to Celine Dion on stage, or doing bad breakdancing. For a real laugh roll up on Thursday night to check out the salsa classes. The last time I went the students enjoyed themselves oblivious to the bad jokes of their over-earnest British teacher. Like an awkward English sitcom. It might even be fun to join in...

Recommended:

• Come for the weird entertainment, not the food.

Avoid:

• Its a bit out of the way, hard to find a taxi or a moto home at night
• Crinkle cut oven chips. Oh dear.

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A request for info:
Does anyone know the name of the hotel/bar/grill place on the airport road, on the hill opposite the Texaco garage? They do decent brochettes, but I've lost my notes.

As featured on the Guardian website!

Marvellous news this morning. An article on the Guardian food website included a link to Kigali Restaurant Reviews. One of my favourite food writers, Jay Rayner, included the link in his blog-article about ethnically incongruous restaurants.

My hit counter has gone through the roof! Hopefully this means the blog will reach a wider audience than the current ex-pat crowd, and perhaps help to encourage a few people to visit Rwanda, see for themselves, and spend a few quid.

Its been a good week for publicity. A few days ago I discovered that a link to KRR had been included in Kigali's 'Loose lips' newsletter. 'Loose Lips' has the makings of a good listings and classifieds magazine for Kigali. You can subscribe to the electronic mailing list by writing to: Kigalinewsletter@gmail.com

A few more reviews coming soon, and I'm hearing good things about 'Torrero' and a new Turkish place opening up. Meanwhile, have a look at my other site: experimental jifflings for some foodie notes from my recent trip to Asia.

Another two:

Two more reviews, and I'm not even in Kigali. Magic.

Le Banjo, Remera, on the road to the stadium
Some sort of safari saloon vibes going on here, but the welcome is friendly. Rwandese and East African menu, and there is a popular buffet at lunchtime.

Recommended:

• Lunchtime buffet (carbs, carbs, beans and carbs) is good value at RwF1,500
• Decent range of snacks - omelettes and so on.

Avoid:

• Its not the most inspiring place. Alright for a quick lunchtime pit-stop.
• The boulettes. Dense.

Freddy's Horizon Garden Restaurant, Kiyovu
Tucked just underneath Heaven, this place has a massive projector screen upon which they are promising to show films. Its a nice little spot to watch olympic gymnastics while partaking of a Mutzig pression or three. Buffet at lunchtime, slightly below-par snacks and brochettes in the evening.

Recommended:

• It might be good for films, if they get the films right. Please: nothing starring Nicholas Cage.
• Cheap. Cheerful

Avoid:

• The goat brochettes have an unusual sweet marinade, but are as tough as tyres. Trying to extract a piece of meat with my fork resulted in it flying some eight feet across the patio, nearly striking a Dutch researcher
• If you're on a date. Nobody looks good under UV lighting
  

KIGALI KRAWL

Did you see what I did there?

Its the final weekend in Kigali. It could very well be the last weekend ever in Kigali. Why do I sense that this isn't over though? The sense that I'll be back here in the new year getting my back slapped by the waiters in Chez Lando.

So a pub crawl is in order. The Kigali Krawl. A gaggle of us, consultants, Australians, and other heavy drinkers. One day we'll publish an official route guide to the Kigali Krawl, they'll sell it in the ORPTN office at a hugely inflated price to amorphously-shaped American tourists. Grown men wearing baseball caps. Supposedly the most advanced nation on earth.

The Kigali Krawl

(Based on field notes, and inspired by the cheap wine lady)

Karibu
The Kigali Krawl Kicks off at Karibu.

Yes.

Every taxi driver, moto-rider, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, knows where Karibu is. An ideal, low key, place to start a krawl through town.

The waiter brings hot nuts. Good thinking Mr Waiter.

We're lingering a bit, need to get the momentum up.

Belvedere
Last time I was in here they were showing the A-Team dubbed into French: "Je plains l'imbécile". There are middle class eaters comprised mostly of tall women with a haughty camelid demeanour and men in bad suits. They stare disapprovingly at our noisy group. We eat our bad food and toddle off.

The voices in my head are singing:
You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can't remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la,la,la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la,la,la

Don't know why. Good song though.

Fine Dine.
Packed with Anglophile Rwandese. They don't stare, but the wazungu in the corner do. Architecturally it has a post-colonial Asmara coffee shop vibe. I haven't been to Asmara. Thats the vibe though. I like it. There is a band. LIVE MUSIC WITH REAL LIVE MUSICIANS PLAYING AND SINGING AND PEOPLE SMILING AND DANCING. In Kigali. Thats not right. Has this been sanctioned by the correct authorities? I'll come here again next week. Ah. Too late.

Passion
Skip the Mille Collines, lets shoot some pool. Two shots to you. Two shots to you. Two shots to you. One shot on the black.

Nice potato wedges. I should've eaten more.

Informers make the smokers go outside. Funny. It doesn't seem like the sort of place that informers would drink.

Torrero
New. Look at this. Coffee tables, illegal gay waiters, and copies of wallpaper* magazine scattered around. We could be in New York.

US troops? what are they doing here? Stop staring at us. No, sorry, stop staring at the girls.

This is a Krawl - coffee is for cheats!

Those two South African idiots again. Lets move on.

Carwash.
Yeah.
Wot no ribs. Bring on the pork and chips. And more beer. Here's Boniface. Forgot to call him, but he found us anyway. Good.

Pork and chips. Drunkeness, perhaps if I just keep talking no one will notice I'm drunk

Lets walk to One Love. Who is this guy following us. Does he know kung fu?

"Do you know Kung Fu?"

"Eh?"

"Do you know Kung Fu?"

"Eh?"

One Love / Orion
Orion: No, rubbish.
One Love: Yes, good.
Open air reggae dancing. I am the only one dancing. Coca-cola to keep me sober.

"Do you know Kung fu?"

Taxi. Hotel. Bed.