A platter of fresh food heaven

Driving around Kampala is a sure way to awaken the food demon inside anyone who appreciates the flavours and aromas of street food. Enterprising traders will fit their charcoal grills and jikos in the one foot between road and drain where they cook up entire meals featuring mostly chicken, pork, chapati, cassava and matooke. It is in this way that during a recent work trip there, the teasing became unbearable and I asked our chauffeur to stop at the next decent place I could enjoy some of indigenous cuisine Uganda is so famous for.

Crane Gardens is a popular bar and restaurant situated merely a few minutes walk from the world famous Namugongo Martyrs Shrine which serves its customers food and drink at any hour of the day. Do not be fooled however; there isn’t a single crane or vegetation patch in sight at this ambitiously named establishment where a request for chips is met with a disapproving sneer and a ‘we don’t have’.

The space itself is nothing to write home about – a covered bar area opens up into a cemented courtyard scattered with plastic tables and chairs spread across two levels leading to the noisy main road. When we arrived there with my colleague and the driver, I foolishly asked for a menu and was instead led to an outside back area to investigate my options. There I found an array of meats laid out on a grate over a roaring fire pit the length of a bed. Beside this sat the cashier who, perhaps from having to endure the infernal temperatures and smoke from the grilling, did not seem to be a happy camper and snarled prices at me from under his breath.

I ordered six of the massive pork skewers with an assortment of sides which included matooke, kachumbari, avocado and cassava, and returned to our table to nurse a cold bottle of Bell Lager. After what seemed like an eternity, our food was brought out, whose presentation was quite a surprise. I don’t know what I was expecting but I had never taken Ugandans for communal eaters. Two platters were laid in front of us, one with the meat which the waiter expertly removed from their skewers, and another bearing all the accompaniments. There was no cutlery to be seen and so we washed our hands and dug in.

Now I don’t know about you but I’ve never had to eat avocado and kachumbari with my hands before outside of a wrap.

The resultant mess was that of a petulant toddler at mealtime with food all over my face, hands and clothes. I must say however, that I did not regret a single moment of it. The pork was tender, packed with juice and extremely delicious. They had also trimmed the fat leaving just enough to allow you that delectable flavour of pig fat without inducing nausea.

I had imagined that the matooke would be mashed but the green bananas came whole, with the skin on. I would have bitten into one like that hadn’t the gracious driver grabbed it from me and peeled it. The cassava for the most part was as unimpressive as it appeared but the gargantuan avocado slices were the freshest and creamiest I have ever tasted in all my days.

You’d assume that with all that starch, a gravy would be necessary but because of the combined succulence of the pork, fruit and kachumbari, I did not once feel my throat was parched. Needless to say, I had a most pleasant experience in a place I ordinarily would not have looked at twice. But Uganda has her charms and boy, are they wonderful!