While staying at the hotel, we've been lucky enough to have every meal cooked for us and the option of 24/7 room service. We've had some really good stuff, but most of the stuff we've tried has been American or International food that we already knew we liked. We did get the chance to go to an Indian Restaurant called The Viceroy, which was really, really good and made my husband very happy. But usually we just eat at one of the restaurants here at the hotel. There's a steakhouse, a buffet, Chinese, Italian, a bakery, a poolside grill, and a very fancy restaurant on the top floor. The Chinese restaurant is probably the best of the bunch, but it's the furthest away and usually makes for a late night.
Every day I meet my fellow expat wife for breakfast and lunch at 8:30 and 1:00, respectively. For breakfast we go to the buffet, and for lunch we usually go to the Italian restaurant. Almost every day I order tomato soup for lunch. And each time it's a little different. It's very confusing actually. The first day I got it, it was a very typical tomato soup with a bit of cream placed in the middle - elegant, homemade, and delicious. The second time, the soup was a bit more orangey and had an entirely different texture. It had lots more things (??) floating around, and I think I tasted carrots (which I hadn't seen anywhere yet). I actually think that they pureed some minestrone soup and added that in without straining out any of the larger pieces. The third time I ordered it, the soup didn't taste like tomatoes at all, but it wasn't bad, it just wasn't tomato soup. Just a bright red broth. I think that they must have just mixed the tomato soup with the minestrone broth. I'm going to try to take a picture next time I order it. Stay tuned for updates on Soup Gate 2012!
Every day I meet my fellow expat wife for breakfast and lunch at 8:30 and 1:00, respectively. For breakfast we go to the buffet, and for lunch we usually go to the Italian restaurant. Almost every day I order tomato soup for lunch. And each time it's a little different. It's very confusing actually. The first day I got it, it was a very typical tomato soup with a bit of cream placed in the middle - elegant, homemade, and delicious. The second time, the soup was a bit more orangey and had an entirely different texture. It had lots more things (??) floating around, and I think I tasted carrots (which I hadn't seen anywhere yet). I actually think that they pureed some minestrone soup and added that in without straining out any of the larger pieces. The third time I ordered it, the soup didn't taste like tomatoes at all, but it wasn't bad, it just wasn't tomato soup. Just a bright red broth. I think that they must have just mixed the tomato soup with the minestrone broth. I'm going to try to take a picture next time I order it. Stay tuned for updates on Soup Gate 2012!
The food at the Christmas party last weekend was really interesting. I mostly ate rice. Earlier in the day there was some delicious chicken that they were roasting in a pit outside and tasty beignet-esque dough balls. But for dinner it was mostly local dishes that were unrecognizable to us. Some ladies insisted that my husband try some local dishes, and I was happy that I had been excluded from their enthusiasm. First, they insisted he take a large ball of dough. Except it wasn't dough, it was dish consisting of very bland, pounded yam, called fufu. It had the consistency of mashed potatoes, and very little flavor of its own. I've also seen people at the hotel use a handful of fufu to scoop up other food items in lieu of a fork.
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| I found this picture on google, that big ball is fufu. I think he had some of the green stuff too, but I don't know what it's called. |
They also insisted he take some unrecognizable pieces of chicken and a green substance that looked like sautéed spinach, except that he kept finding weird bones in it, so we have no idea what it could have been. Since I was able to choose my own meal, I had 2 different kinds of rice and a soup-like shrimp dish that looked like étouffée, but didn't taste like it. It was a lot spicier than I had anticipated but still pretty good. They take spice very seriously here.
They also had ice cream from Coldstone Creamery at the party. Whaaaattt! I haven't been in an actual shop yet, but I've seen a few locations. The ice cream tasted pretty good but I'm weary of ice cream here because you never know if it has been properly frozen. The only other American chains I've seen here are KFC, and Dominos, and something called Johnny Rockets is about to open and people are really excited about it. It's very bizarre to me that there are no McDonald's here, I didn't know there was any place in the world untouched by Ronald.
Other popular Nigerian dishes I've seen in the restaurants here are Goat/Fish/Chicken/Turkey Pepper Soup (I've heard it's super spicy), Fish Stew (I see this at the breakfast buffet??), and all manner of plantains. They eat a lot of goat here. I have since learned that goat is the most popular meat in the world, it just doesn't happen to be very popular in the US. I find it's texture to be stringy and a bit tough, but maybe I just haven't had the right dish yet. Someone told me that a lot of the meat here will be tough and stringy due to butchering methods. Although it's a bit unpleasant to think about, the US requires that cattle (and other edible animals) be treated humanely, and butchers go to great efforts to prevent animals from suffering too much, thus they aren't under too much stress when they die. It's upsetting to think about and I'm no expert, so I'm not going to put more thought into that.
They also had ice cream from Coldstone Creamery at the party. Whaaaattt! I haven't been in an actual shop yet, but I've seen a few locations. The ice cream tasted pretty good but I'm weary of ice cream here because you never know if it has been properly frozen. The only other American chains I've seen here are KFC, and Dominos, and something called Johnny Rockets is about to open and people are really excited about it. It's very bizarre to me that there are no McDonald's here, I didn't know there was any place in the world untouched by Ronald.
Other popular Nigerian dishes I've seen in the restaurants here are Goat/Fish/Chicken/Turkey Pepper Soup (I've heard it's super spicy), Fish Stew (I see this at the breakfast buffet??), and all manner of plantains. They eat a lot of goat here. I have since learned that goat is the most popular meat in the world, it just doesn't happen to be very popular in the US. I find it's texture to be stringy and a bit tough, but maybe I just haven't had the right dish yet. Someone told me that a lot of the meat here will be tough and stringy due to butchering methods. Although it's a bit unpleasant to think about, the US requires that cattle (and other edible animals) be treated humanely, and butchers go to great efforts to prevent animals from suffering too much, thus they aren't under too much stress when they die. It's upsetting to think about and I'm no expert, so I'm not going to put more thought into that.
There are lots of other interesting dishes that I can't recall at the moment, but I'll report back later.
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