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Best Dining Bets
Nyama Choma: The staple meal across Tanzania is nyama choma, which means "roasted meat" in KiSwahili. Hunks of beef or goat and sometimes game meat are roasted over an open charcoal fire, and it's usually served with kachumbari, a mixture of chopped or shredded vegetables in a vinegar or lemon-juice dressing.
Swahili Cooking: Swahili cuisine, like its language, is a blend of ingredients from all over the world. For hundreds of years the coast of Tanzania was plied by traders from Asia, Persia, and Arabia, and these cuisines have influenced the African way of cooking and produced a unique Swahili flavor. Spices include cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and there's a variety of dishes featuring fish, seafood, and tropical fruits. Try fragrant coconut prawn curries, coriander-laced baked fish, spicy tamarind dips, or aromatic crab bisque.
Drinks: Sodas (soft drinks) are available everywhere and are very cheap; it's difficult to miss the saturation of advertisements for Coca-Cola on brightly painted buildings. When buying soda from a shop, you must drink it there as you have to give the bottle back. Beer is very good and is served icy cold. Local brands include Safari and Kilimanjaro lagers.
Off to Market: Just about every imaginable fruit and vegetable is grown in Tanzania, and the majority of the population makes a living from agriculture. Markets are marvelously colorful places to visit; stalls groan under the weight of fresh produce and traders beckon shoppers to playfully haggle. Oranges, mangoes, papayas, and bananas make tasty snacks on safari.
Something Fishy: The Indian Ocean offers an abundance of seafood, and Dar es Salaam's Kariakoo Fish Market is the largest of its kind on the East African coast. Boats deliver their catch at dawn, and the market attracts thousands of shoppers throughout the day who haggle with the traders for red snapper, lobster, prawns, squid, barracuda, and shellfish. There's a fish-frying section, too, where you can pick up some ready-to-eat calamari rings or giant prawns.
Tea Time: On the coast, chai maziwa (tea with milk) is a local favorite and worth trying if you don't mind the large amounts of sugar they put in it. It's usually served in little glasses. The Swahili tradition is to have a glass of morning chai while gossiping with friends. The word is the same in Chinese, which demonstrates the influence the Far East had on the East African coast's culture and language over the centuries.
The Best Restaurants
Tower Top Restaurant (at the 236 Hurumzi Hotel, Zanzibar): One of the most atmospheric places to eat on Zanzibar, this rooftop restaurant is in a restored palace of a wealthy Swahili trader and is decorated with antiques and wooden lattice screens. You can watch the sun sink over the Indian Ocean while lying back on Arab-style pillows around low tables sipping cocktails. The set menus are dominated by seafood.
Forodhani Gardens (in front of the Old Fort, Stone Town, Zanzibar): The cheapest place to eat on Zanzibar, this nightly food market lit by paraffin lamps is a great place to wander around. The delicious aromas of food cooking over the coals stimulate a good appetite. Try giant crab claws, calamari strips, octopus tentacles, or prawn kebabs accompanied by piles of spicy naan bread, chapattis, and fried potato balls. Look out for African-style pizza crowned with a fried egg and tangy tamarind sauce, and fresh sugarcane juice.
Redd's African Grill (Arusha Coffee Lodge, Arusha; tel. 027/250-0630; www.elewana.com): Superb cuisine can be found at this lodge on a working coffee farm on the road to the Ngorongoro Crater. The elegant tables are set in the shade of large umbrellas on the lawns, and a large wooden deck leads to a lovely swimming pool. There's a good range of meat dishes, plenty of vegetables and salads, and the wines come from South Africa.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before
planning your trip.
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