Tanzania (Arusha and environs, Zanzibar)

Anyone? Anyone? A smattering of posts that mention the area, but that's about it. Will likely have time for only one or two meals in Arusha, but lunches on a typical Northern Circuit safari route (Karatu area) might be helpful. Also, Zanzibar, mostly Nungwi but also interested in a Stonetown rec. I fear silence, but hey, can't hurt to ask.

Great to hear. I was in Arusha and Stonetown many years ago. Here is a good and roughly contemporaneous NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/30/trave ... all&src=pm

In Zanzibar, I would strongly suggest you stay at one of Mr. Emerson’s places (Emerson Spice gets stellar reviews) then eat wherever they tell you to. It's not the sort of place where the best dining experiences will be at established restaurants with web presence.

http://www.mambomagazine.com/nutshell-g ... rson-spice

And hope that the flamboyant and mysterious Mr. Emerson is there (he used to spend more time at his place in Istanbul). Maybe the last Anglo-American patron who can pull off the handlebar mustache/pith helmet shtick without irony or comedy in 2012. Like a fabulous and real version of the Most Interesting Man in the World.

Arusha was an impenetrable, dusty frontier way station to me when we were there. Other than a crap bar with Mt. Meru [edit: mistakenly said K'manjaro before] in the background, nothing there for me.

Looking forward to your report more than any I could imagine.

PS, the ocean side of Z ‘Bar is a spectacular beach with great snorkeling, but it is in the end a beach (and I love the beach). Stone Town is unique and you should make sure to spend sufficient time there.

A colleague at work followed an itinerary similar to yours a couple of years back. I just asked her about restaurants, and she said most of the places were overpriced with mediocre food. The only exception she could think of was a place called Cinnamon in Nungwi. She said the view was lovely and the appetizers and drinks were solid.

Though food in East Africa was mostly pretty bad in my experience (by this I mean Kenya and Tanzania, not Eritrea, Ethiopia etc.) with some Indian being an exception, the food on Zanzibar was excellent if one stuck to what most on this board naturally would - simple, local stuff cooked in the local style. A fish cooked over a fire with some of the many fruits and spices still cultivated on the island after 1000 years of being the Spice Island, for example. I wouldn't order the spaghetti Bolognese or chicken chow mein, no matter how good the locals say the Italian or Chinese place is. You are in Africa for chrissakes, but gringos (whether from the US, UK or AUS etc.) go for that all the time.

Thanks guys - I'll be in Nungwi, at the very northern tip of Zanzibar. I'll be doing a spice tour for sure. I'll also visit Stonetown, but probably just for one lunch (I understand it's at least a 45-minute drive from Nungwi). Unfortunately Jeff, I'm all set on accommodations in Zanzibar though it's always my practice to speak to hotel employees for recommendations on local favorites, making sure they understand I want to go where they would go. This practice has largely served me well.

Were were there on our honeymoon in 1988-awaiting the climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro. There was no place to eat other than a small chinese restaurant and the youth hostel. IIRC (and I do) the food was horrible.

I once watched a documentary about divers in Zanzibar who caught lobsters for the local hotels. They get more money for the bigger and more exotic looking ones they find. I think they take something that looks like a squid and put it on the end of a pole to scare one out of a hiding place. Not the most interesting thing, i know. I would love to see Kilwe Kisiwani, or Debre Damo someday.

Well, I've been back for nearly two weeks now and let me tell you I had some of the worst meals in my life in Tanzania. Of course, I was on a safari for a good chunk of the time so I can't say that food was my primary thought. This might be one of the first times I've returned from an exotic destination and raced out for American classics like burgers, pizza, fries and the like.

We started off in Arusha for a day or so, but we were so exhausted from the 30+ hours of air travel (Chicago -> Frankfort -> Khartoum, Sudan -> Addis Ababa -> Arusha, Tanzania -- frequent flyer miles, although the stop in Khartoum was just for UN personnel and refueling) that we never left our hotel. Of course, we were also staying a fair distance from restaurants.

On safari, they certainly feed you a lot at the various camps/lodges - three large meals per day. Unfortunately, most of the food was pretty bad. Breakfasts were westernized, and that was generally a decent meal, even if egg cooking is not quite up to par. Breads were generally not so great either. But bigger problems typically occurred at lunches and dinners - vegetables cooked until mushy and disgusting looking although occasionally just barely cooked, which was almost as bad; meats tough and terribly overcooked; salt and pepper seemed almost unheard of. I mean, I don't think they put even a grain of salt on anything. At our lodge in Arusha, we were given a preview of the issues by the owners of the lodge, a German couple who sat down with us for breakfast and laughed about their attempts to have Tanzanians try Western food.

That being said, we were often served meat stews and with a little salt and pepper, you noticed that some of the sauces were really terrific. These were usually curries but in the African sense, similar to what I've enjoyed in the Caribbean-West Indies, so not quite Indian . . . in fact, as if you combined an Indian curry and jerk seasoning. So I was often able to enjoy a lunch/dinner of one of these sauces and rice. I could stomach some of the overcooked and tough meats, but the vegetables were beyond awful. And soups were generally so thin (watery, not creamy) and unseasoned that there was little opportunity to rescue them (I would have needed to heat and condense).

Occasionally your camp/lodge would set you up with a box breakfast or lunch, thus allowing you to maximize game viewing. One day I was given a breakfast box that was full of ants. No problem - I had two pieces of buttered bread wrapped in plastic wrap. About halfway through eating a slice, I noticed that in fact there were probably a hundred ants inside the wrapped bread. I stopped eating and felt sick for the next hour (mentally, not physically) . . . I guess I viewed this differently than the ant egg omelet I enjoyed a couple of years ago in Chiang Mai. I can laugh about this all now.

After each full day of game viewing, we'd return to our camp/lodge for cocktails before dinner. Some of our favorite beverages:


One of the local beers



The main local spirit, similar to gin



Occasionally, just a Diet Coke


After cocktails was dinner. A couple of places we stayed served some terrific meals. At Dunia Camp in the Serengeti, they served dinner to their 16 daily occupants (only 8 tents) at this lovely communal dinner table:




One of the nights there, they served ossu bucco which was very good, particularly the sauce which was easily the best version of the Tanzanian curry sauce I tasted. I didn't get any good pictures (too dark) and I didn't want to ruin the mood with my flash.

My favorite spot though was Gibb's Farm, in Karatu not too far from the Ngorongoro Crater. It was high up in the hills and the scene of an amazing organic farm and coffee plantation producing Arabica coffee beans (roasted on premises too). We were given a tour of the farm shortly after our arrival, and the farm offered just about every fruit, herb and vegetable you could imagine.




Until then, I had actually never seen artichokes growing:



Artichokes


Plenty of coffee growing too:



Coffee tree in top picture; our farm guide holding coffee beans and leaves from the tree


A lot of bananas growing:





Though our one dinner on the farm was nothing to glow about, our lunch was spectacular. It was served buffet style and might have showcased every fruit and vegetable grown on the farm. This was the buffet that would totally change your opinion of buffets. Here are just some of the offerings:


Various salads



Various quiches and savory pastries



An amazing beef-African curry stew



A terrific pasta with a lighter curry seasoning



Rhubarb cake for dessert - fantastic


All in all, a really fantastic lunch. There was also plenty of fresh fruit (amazing pineapples, bananas, mangoes and passion fruit). I'd say the pineapples I had in Tanzania were the best I've ever tasted . . . better than Hawaiian . . . but mangoes, bananas and passion fruit were always outstanding too.

Some other photos - in the first one, a local butcher (and young kid) seemingly not pleased with my photography skills, but that's okay . . . I knew they'd probably overcook the meat. And his butchering skills were not so impressive. Usually, only people that know me chase my with knives in the air:




I'd prefer not to have to ride this bike with the assigned cargo:




I decided not to eat any raw meat on this trip, but I don't think these cheetahs were going to share any Thompson's Gazelle with me anyway:








We were actually lucky enough to watch these cheetahs for a while and followed their hunt and kill. We also spent several days in Zanzibar (even worse than mainland Tanzania food-wise) but I'll cover that in my next post. Overall, I had an absolutely amazing time - best trip of my life - and the people of Tanzania were so friendly and welcoming. I'd highly recommend a safari to anyone. Just don't go in thinking about food.

Some things I omitted from my last post:

I was lucky enough (alright, not so lucky) to have ugali a couple of times. Well, I love grits. But ugali just didn't seem like grits. Beyond the fact that they were served completely unsalted (like everything else in Tanzania), even with salt added they were rather bland so I'm assuming there was something besides corn in the mix, something almost entirely devoid of flavor. Internet searches reveal possible mix-ins such as millet, cassava, etc., but all I can say is that the ugali was very bland the couple of times I had it. Ultimately, it turned out to be nothing more than filler, but sometimes mixed with curry or whatever sauce we had, not offensive.

There was almost always a beans with coconut dish (and at nearly all times of day) - typically kidney beans with coconut cream, but also with some vegetables like onions, green peppers. But like the soups, it was typically somewhat thin so without the ability to reduce/condense, the flavor was nothing to get excited about. Also, I typically thought the beans could use a little more cooking (quite al dente), although maybe that's better than the vegetable mush we were typically served. I suspect the thinness of this dish and the soups was probably the result of Tanzanians used to trying to maximize the serving size of a dish, unfortunately at the expense of flavor.

Also a typical side dish was their version of spinach, but it was always served rather plain and boiled beyond belief, and beyond the unappetizing color, I found it rather bitter and unpleasant.

I should also note that while I complained about all the meat being tough and overcooked, the average Tanzanian can afford to eat meat about once a month (maybe twice), according to our driver and a few others we spoke with. So it should not be surprising to find that many are inexperienced with tenderizing and cooking meat and the like. The meats served were typically beef, sometimes lamb or goat, and occasionally chicken.

Finally, I also had maandazi a few times. These are basically fried yeast breads, similar to the yeast dough version of johnny cakes. How could you go wrong with these? Well, you couldn't (although again, a sprinkling of salt was needed to extract some flavor). Thus, they were always a nice meal addition.

I found it easy to get local cuisine in the camps (the drivers were served the same local foods, but almost always without meats, and in a separate dining area). And from the Westernized food I tasted, I wasn't passing up anything stellar. We passed a couple of roadside grills/stands where I thought I might try a few other items including grilled meats, but with the flies all over everything and having already sampled some grilled meats in camps, I felt like it just wasn't worth the exploration (not to mention I would have had to negotiate extensively for a freshly cooked piece).

I'll move on to Zanzibar in my next post.

Before I get to Zanzibar, I found one picture of some lamb stew I had with ugali (and the overcooked spinach), so here it is. This version of ugali however was denser than the other I had. This was one of those cases where at least the sauce was delicious, because the lamb was tough and overcooked and the ugali tasteless.

Wow! Great photos and post!

Threads on places I'll likely never be able to visit are always great, thanks for sharing. Particularly like the Gibb's Farm shot.

Thanks for the compliments. In Zanzibar, we visited a spice farm which was really fantastic, but with so many pictures, I'll save that discussion and pictures for a follow-up post.

As disappointing as the Tanzanian mainland was food-wise, I'd say Zanzibar was even more disappointing. You constantly see beautiful fish being pulled in from the Indian Ocean - how can you not be excited. Well, they overcook the hell out of it. So once again, the key is the accompanying sauce, but at least there were some very good ones. Again, sauces that seemed to be one half Indian curry, the other half Zanzibar spices almost like you'd encounter in jerk seasoning, and typically very good. One night, I had a 1.5 lb lobster (dirt cheap), simply grilled without a sauce, but it was so overcooked I could not even pull it out of the cracked shell as the meat and shell almost became one. We ate at several different places in Nungwi where we stayed, but never had a meal that was particularly worth mentioning.

We visited Stone Town one day, but only for one full day since it was an hour drive from our hotel in Nungwi, on the far northern tip of the island. We asked one of the workers at our hotel for dining suggestions and it became clear he had no intention of letting us go anywhere but a tourist spot. But we arranged for a driver for the day (you don't want to rent a car as we were constantly alerted about extortion from other visitors, where local police stop you every few miles and collect a fine). As it was, we were stopped several times but never quite understood the Swahili conversations. But our driver was terrific, and became excited when I asked him to take me to his favorite restaurant in Stone Town.

So we ended up at what he described as a Swahili restaurant, Lukmaan (there's plenty of Indian food in Zanzibar, as many Indians migrated to Tanzania, including Zanzibar, although we were informed Zanzibar is 97% Muslim). Plenty of Indian restaurants, but that's not what we wanted.


The menu at Lukmaan restaurant


Of course, the menu wasn't a big help because what was listed and what was in the hot food containers at the counter appeared to be completely different things.



Foods on display


Ordering at the crowded counter wasn't particularly easy however:




We came to realize that if you did not simply shout out your order, others would essentially shout over you and push you out of the way. Eventually, I adapted, carved out some space, and took control of the ordering process. We eventually received our food, and it was a bit of a mixed bag. My friend had some kind of meat on a bone that was flavorful enough, but overcooked and dry and rather lukewarm. It came with rice, some tasty pickled onions and their version of chapati, an Indian flatbread that was slightly greasy.



Meat dish above, chapati below


I ordered what appeared to be some sort of ground beef stew, and it fared better. In fact, I'd say it was pretty decent, and I had it with rice and chapati. But with all of the amazing spices on Zanzibar, I wish there was a little more flavor.


Some kind of beef stew


Of course, considering the meal cost us less than $10 for 2 persons (including drinks and extra chapati), it was not such a bad situation.

We also had plenty of time to explore Stone Town, which was quite interesting. We visited their market area, where there were sections for fruits, vegetables, spices, meats and fish. We didn't get to see the highlight of the fish market in action, which is the auction location. Apparently, fishermen bring their prized catches here and the bidding begins . . . not quite the Tsukiji market, but oh well:


Zanzibar's not quite-Tsukiji market, fish auction not in progress

Most of the seafood we did see on display was fine, but obviously not presented under the most ideal conditions, especially as the day wore on:





There were the meat butchers, of sorts:




Fruits, vegetables (and bare feet, of course), eggs, etc.:








There was street food here and there, none of it looking particularly appealing . . . lots of flies, lots of skewers of meat I suspected were overcooked (and not so fresh) . . . I never expected to completely pass up street food, but I'm pretty confident I didn't miss any gems.

It was so hot and humid I found myself having a cold drink nearly every 20 minutes. In fact, I've never been anywhere that felt this hot and humid . . . not even close, making the hottest day I experienced in Thailand/Cambodia feel rather comfortable. One drink I didn't try was a squeezed sugar cane juice, which at least seemed interesting, with the cane squeezed through the machine to extract the liquid:

One of my favorite activities in Zanzibar was our visit to a spice farm, where we got a tour, and tasted spices, herbs and fruits. Even better, I purchased 20 magnificently fresh vanilla beans for US$6 (negotiated down from $18, which itself seemed like a great price).

So many items I had never seen growing, or had never tasted before in their ultimate freshness. But rather than spoil it for you, I'll post the pictures of the spices/fruits seen on the spice tour with an answer key at the bottom . . . in case you'd like to guess and play along. Of course, there will be some gimmes.




A ______________








B ______________ (I didn't think anyone would get this w/o the 2nd picture)








C ______________








D ______________








E ______________








F ______________






G ______________






H ______________ (you better get this one)








I _______________ (name both for extra credit)








J _______________






K _______________






L _______________






M _______________






N _______________








O _______________


Answer key below:








A) Mango; B) Turmeric; C) Peppercorns; D) Cinnamon; E) Licorice Tree - not sure of relation to licorice, but it tasted very similar; F) Cardamom; G) Vanilla bean; H) Pineapple; I) Nutmeg and mace (mace is the red exterior), J) Cloves; K) Curry Leaf; L) Coconut; M) Passion fruit; N) Jackfruit; O) Ginger


The most eye-opening tastes for me were turmeric and ginger. I've purchased turmeric before for use in Thai cooking, but never tasted it this fresh . . . more flavorful than the turmeric I've purchased at Whole Foods. But the ginger also delivered an even more assertive spice zing than I'm used to from ginger purchased at the grocery store. I guess I should not have been surprised given the time it takes this produce to reach the market. One more item: the pineapples I tasted in Tanzania, and particularly Zanzibar (where they seemed to grow everywhere) were easily the best pineapples I've ever tasted and better than ones I've had in Hawaii. Mangoes were really damn good too. And in addition to the vanilla beans, I purchased cardamom, nutmeg, black peppercorns and a spicy curry powder.

Anyway, that's the end of Tanzania and Zanzibar. I hope to make it back, but not for the food (although maybe the fruits and spices).

I love, love, love this. Especially the nutmeg and mace. I've never seen that before and man, what a striking visual. Thanks, BR.

Wow BR!
Absolutely breathtaking!

Dmnkly wrote:I love, love, love this. Especially the nutmeg and mace. I've never seen that before and man, what a striking visual. Thanks, BR.

Thanks, and good catch on the mace - I decided to leave it as one choice but of course the red exterior is the mace.

Edited to note that I've now added the extra credit to the quiz . . . should have included in the first place.

Nutmeg and mace were the only ones I was sure of, I had seen them in Jamaica. Beautiful photos and especially the photos in the market. Just fascinating!

Great report. Your photos bring back memories and make me eager to return (but mostly not for the food). Sorry you found no good eats in Z'bar. Like I said and has been pretty well documented, the food in that part of the world generally ain't great. Overcooked meats and underseasoned starches. I did find remarkably good food on Z'bar myself, but the itinerary was flipped -- most of the time in Stonetown, a little time at the beach. I recall very good sambusas/samosas, kachori, biryani, and one terrific Goan-ish squid curry, and ubiquitous baggies of dried coconut with peanuts and curry powder, all from the street and only hot out of the oil or the steaming vat. Also a good bit of scorching pili-pili hoho sauce on everything made up for the general lack of spice. Bad, bland food in a tropical paridise with abundant produce and spices is a common paradox. Costa Rica comes to mind.

PS, were there not Enlish banger-style sausages all over the place? Maybe Farmer's Choice brand? Those and a beer were always the fallback for me.

LikestoEatout wrote:Nutmeg and mace were the only ones I was sure of, I had seen them in Jamaica. Beautiful photos and especially the photos in the market. Just fascinating!

Thanks about the photos . . . but I hope you also recognized the pineapple and coconuts.

JeffB wrote:Great report. Your photos bring back memories and make me eager to return (but mostly not for the food). Sorry you found no good eats in Z'bar. Like I said and has been pretty well documented, the food in that part of the world generally ain't great. Overcooked meats and underseasoned starches. I did find remarkably good food on Z'bar myself, but the itinerary was flipped -- most of the time in Stonetown, a little time at the beach. I recall very good sambusas/samosas, kachori, biryani, and one terrific Goan-ish squid curry, and ubiquitous baggies of dried coconut with peanuts and curry powder, all from the street and only hot out of the oil or the steaming vat. Also a good bit of scorching pili-pili hoho sauce on everything made up for the general lack of spice. Bad, bland food in a tropical paridise with abundant produce and spices is a common paradox. Costa Rica comes to mind.

PS, were there not Enlish banger-style sausages all over the place? Maybe Farmer's Choice brand? Those and a beer were always the fallback for me.

Only after eating at Lukmaan did I see things like samosas and kachori (no biryani) so I wasn't even hungry anymore, but even then, I only saw them in glass cases and I didn't get a good feeling that they were freshly fried (no oil vats/pots in sight). But then again, I was only in Stone Town for the one day so no question I might have missed a lot of this. But I certainly didn't miss the spices - they seemed to be sold all over Stone Town . . . amazing prices too. Nungwi offered a whole lot of nothing!

Interestingly, I kept exploring the subject of seasoning with Tanzanians, thinking I was just missing something when I found the food under-seasoned. I kept thinking they must just add hot sauce. But while some admitted to adding hot sauce to foods, many said no, some even saying they can't handle the spice. But at least the curry-type sauces were generally nicely spiced and delicious.

I'll say that on the spice farm tour, we were able to taste/eat everything including a few items not pictured, like oranges, bananas and cherimoya (our guide obviously came prepared with sharp knives and the like) and that really made for a fantastic meal, particularly the fruits and juices from the fruits as Zanzibar was the hottest, most humid place I've ever encountered.