Big on taste, poor on presentation

The organisation I work for has a cook who makes the most delicious meals for lunch.

This past Friday I got to the office at 1:30pm and when I ran to the kitchen, I only found remnants of ugali and a mango chutney which don’t work well on their own.

One sufuria, which now only had traces of fried beef at the bottom, was so empty I could have called out my name and the sound would have echoed off the walls and back at me.

Boy, was I hungry! I begrudgingly went back to my desk, the smell of fried meat still wafting towards me as though mocking my misfortune. I decided to order from kitchen, an online platform I used to give all my money to before my boss decided to hire a cook.

Their food was always fresh and healthy, and their BLT sandwich, Thai chicken noodle salad and beef massaman curry were old time favourites.

This time, I noticed new menu additions and decided to try the pita pocket which was priced at Sh450, with delivery costing an extra Sh200.

I was told it would take an hour or less, and so the wait began.

My co-workers came back from lunch praising the cook for the day’s lunch, and still I waited. I walked into a meeting whose agenda I can barely remember because of anticipation and hunger, and still I waited.

When the clock hit an hour, I called ki.chen to ask where my food was and was informed that the delivery guy was on his way. Finally, after one hour 40 minutes, I got my order.

At this point I was too hungry to even complain and so I pretty much tore open the package and whipped out my lunch, brandishing it like Gollum with the ring in Lord of the Rings.

“My precioooousssss!” But wait. The dish looked nothing like the picture on the website which had this colourful image of a pita pocket stuffed with cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes and two patties topped with an avocado sauce.

My pita only had cabbage and two patties, so not exactly the most appetizing sight. There was an avocado sauce in a smaller tin.

The pita itself was dry and falling apart, like that crispy flake of ugali that always remains at the bottom of the sufuria when you leave your ugali on the fire too long. We had a good laugh about the picture vs the actual dish in the office, then I tucked in because I was hungry.

The dish was surprisingly tasty. The sweet potato and chickpea patties were mildly spicy, and the avocado sauce tied everything together. It turned out there was some feta cheese in there as well. …although, maybe I was really just hungry.