My last post was about cooking at our house. We like to cook at home – both typical food we’d eat in Iowa (but with a lot less cheese – it’s too expensive) and new Tanzanian foods I am learning to cook.
But we also really enjoy eating out to get the full Tanzanian dining experience. It’s fun, inexpensive, less work and good food. We mostly eat at one of the four cafeterias here on campus. It doesn’t take long to walk to any of them. We usually go for lunch because we don’t like to walk around campus after dark. I have some pictures of food sprinkled in other posts, but this one is dedicated entirely to some of our eating experiences and foods we’ve liked.
Cafeteria No. 1. When we first arrived, the University was not in session so some of the cafeterias were closed. This was our main eating establishment: fast, cheap and pretty good.
Waiting in the wali line (the rice line). There is also a line for ugali but we don’t frequent that line as much. You order from the menu on the wall, which may or may not be accurate. Then you pay the person, who in turn gives you a slip of paper about the size of a stamp. You immediately hand that slip to another person who serves your food up on a plate. Then, you go to the big pot of boiling water to fish out a spoon with tongs that really don’t work all that well. The ugali line is the same except you don’t fish out a spoon – you eat it all with your hands.
Having fun outside of Cafeteria No. 1.
Some of our favorites at the cafeteria:
I really like ndizi na nyama and I thought that’s what I had ordered. Turns out I ordered ndizi na maini, which is liver. Not my favorite meal. I kept trying to tell myself that liver is good for me as I choked it down!
Chipsi na kuku, wali na maharage, nyama mixi, na chapati. Translation: chicken and fries, rice and beans, rice with meat and sauce, chapati.
One of our two favorite beers: Safari. We also really like Castle Milk Stout. Both are Tanzanian beers.
Favorite snack foods. Fried banana crisps, spicy cassava crips, taro crisps, popcorn (American Garden brand), British cream crackers (super good with avocados on top, and CASHEWS! (Not pictured but often consumed: regular potato chips.)
We also like to eat fish when we are out (we don’t cook it at home because the girls don’t like it). My favorite is Kingfish. I was not familiar with it until coming here, but it is so good!
This is the downtown Dar fish market. We do not buy fish directly from there, but most likely the fish we do eat comes from here. Popular fishes are dagaa (little dry salty fishes you eat whole) and kubua (smallish fish served grilled whole with rice or ugali).
Delicious food from a catered meal: njgere,chipsi, kachumbali, mchicha, kuku, pilau, kabichi. Yum!
Speaking of fish, we recently had this delicious dish: Tasi nazi lambalamba (fish with coconut sauce).
Makande – a new food we tried at Cafeteria 2 – we’re branching out! And we all really like this corn and beans mixture.
We eat so much fresh fruit here. When we first arrived, tikiti maji, machungwa, na papai were in season (watermelon, oranges and papaya). Now, we eat the most amazing embe, parachichi, na nanasi EVERYDAY!! A plate like this costs about $1.50. Did I mention it was amazing?
I could go on about food but I’ll just summarize by saying we have really enjoyed eating Tanzanian food. Generally they don’t use a lot of spices in their cooking but we have come to really like the simple and fresh flavors.
SylLy Acres 