Another weekend

Friday again--amazing how the days go by. I think I will take this post and tell you of my culinary adventures in Arusha so far.

I'm not well versed on the traditional food, but I know corn, rice, and beans are staples. Here's a view of the snacks sold in the snack shop (goodbye pre-packaged US snacks!):
hardboiled eggs dipped in some kind of spicy batter and fried (haven't had these yet)
potato patties with spices that are fried (heavy on the onion--I just about breathed fire after eating one)
samosas (veggie and meat--both are very good)
bread pastries in various shapes and sizes (I bought one this morning--they say they're like donuts, but not US donuts. They seem more like a roll, but are a little sweeter than regular dinner rolls.)
cinnamon rolls
breaded and fried bananas (I really want to try one of these)

My landlady also treated me to coconut water on the street. You see men with huge trays of coconuts, and the tops are shaved/cut into points. After you buy one, the man selling them chops off the top with a knife, right there in front of you, and then just hands it to you to drink. I've never seen a coconut up close, much less the inside of one, and much less drank from one in the street! The coconut is thick, but it's completely hollow on the inside and filled with coconut water. Apparently the juice stains clothing (she said be careful with it) but is full of minerals and healthy stuff, so it really was a treat. There's a lot in there and it has a very distinct coconut flavor--I almost couldn't finish mine, because it was so filling, but I didn't want to miss any of the healthy stuff. Then, when you're done with it, you just hand the coconut back to the man. No idea what he does with them, but I imagine there's something useful to do with the rest of the coconut.

I already spoke of the french-fry-omlette thing (which I tried to reproduce last night for dinner, with pretty abysmal results. At least the egg was cooked all the way through), and I've had lots of VERY good Pakistani dishes cooked by my landlady's mother. I've also had vegetable curry with rice (very good) and rice and beans at the Immigration Canteen, a restaurant frequented by the interns.
This is what the restaurant looks like: it's one big room filled with plastic tables and lawn chairs, with a long counter on one end. Behind the counter is a man serving food, which is kept in huge pots and bowls. He scoops up rice with a small plastic bowl, puts it in the middle of the plate, ladles sauce over it (no idea what was in it--I just said "sauce please") and uses the same ladle to dish up greens, beans, and meat, if you ask for it. Then he just hands you the plate with a smile and you pay 2000 Tsh afterwards (approximately $1.37) to a man who collects money and keeps it in an old-fashioned lockbox. You can pay another 1000 Tsh for a coke or water, if you want it, and when you're done someone picks up your plates. I didn't order it because I didn't know about it, but I heard that you can also get ugali, which is a traditional corn-porridge-type dish.

Not all restaurants look like that (there's a reason the food is so cheap--good, but low maintenance) but you can get the same food at "prettier" restaurants and you just overpay. There's another restaurant called Via Via, where you sit down, someone serves you, and there's a nice atmosphere...however, you pay 6000 Tsh for "traditional Tanzania dish" which is three times the amount for the same food that you can eat in plastic lawn chairs at Immigration Canteen. If you're a foodie, there are a lot of other places to eat, but I've only sampled the cheap ones so far, because I'm not a foodie. We'll see what other adventures I get in during the next two months.