Carnivore and Kikoi

I have never in my entire life eaten so much food in one sitting. Not just food. Meat. Lots and lots of meat.

We drove to Nairobi today for a nice weekend away from reports and school work. We stopped in Ishamara where the vet students are staying to pick up a cooler of cow poop to take to the lab on our way into the city. We met their cook who made us a delicious glass of fresh passion fruit juice and who invited us to stay for lunch on Sunday on our way back to Meru. We are hoping to take him up on his offer as we have heard nothing but very very good things about his culinary genius. We drove past the Karatina Market, where we will hopefully stop on our way back to Meru to get fresh fruit and veg for the week. We also drove past the Starbucks in Karatina. I thought it was awesome that there is a Starbucks in Kenya. Sure it's just a hotel, but the fact that the power of the Starbucks brand name trickled it's way all the way to a tiny little market in Kenya blows my mind a little.

When we got to Nairobi, we met with Henry. Henry is more and more awesome every time I meet him. He has magic powers of some sort which make it possible for him to arrange absolutely anything you want in Kenya. Lucky for us he's our go to guy. He took Christina and I out for lunch to Java House. We haven't had lettuce in a very long time, or vegetables that havn't been soaked in oil and extremely well cooked so seeing salads on the menu was basically the highlight of my week. An americano, followed by a greek salad followed by fresh fruit with yogurt, honey and nuts was pretty much the best meal I have had since arriving in Kenya. We left Java House fed and happy and met up with Henry's assistant / accountant / employee (?) Susan. Susan took us to Biashara street to go shopping. Our mission was to buy about 30 sheets of kikoi. (The reason for the excessive quantity will be revealed in the next couple of days) We hit the jackpot. We got the kikoi for cheaper than we expected and found amazing kikoi bedding at the same place. The owners gave us a sweet deal since we bought so much and we absolutely love our purchases.

We checked into our hotel, which has free internet! This is an extra awesome bonus because we didn't think it would have internet and the internet we do have via safaricom modems is sketch at best. After settling in and checking e-mail, our driver Ronald took us to Carnivore.

Carnivore is a glorious glorious place. We called and tried to get reservations but they were all booked, but some how Ronald talked them into giving us a table. As soon as we sat down, drink menus were placed in our hands, and a man came around with hot towels. In no time I had a pina colada in my hand and an entire table full of food in front of me. The meal started with "bites", some random quiche-ish apps. Next came a homemade cream of leek soup with bread and butter, followed by a two tiered Lazy Susan of assorted salads and sauces. On the top of the Lazy Susan was a white flag. When you are ready to surrender, you lay the white flag down, signifying that you cannot possible eat any more. Before we even got a chance to make a dent on the salads, we were each given a hot plate and some baked potatoes with sour cream. We were still trying to finish the salads when along came a long line up of men with HUGE spears of meat. We had several types of chicken, pork sausage, kenyan sausage, pork ribs, beef, crocodile, chicken liver, ox testicles, ox heart, ostrich meatballs, lamb and turkey. By the time we had tried everything, and had seconds of the good stuff, I literally could not move. Everyone at the tables around you notices when you surrender, so as soon as you even put your hand on the flag, someone will chirp in with a "don't do it!" or a "just one more ox ball!" and of course you look at them as if they couldn't possibly have any idea how much pain you are in from over eating, but not wanting to wimp out you call the waiter holding an entire leg of lamb on a skewer over to cut you one more piece. Finally, after 2 hours of straight eating, we gave up and surrendered. But of course, at this point, when you think there is no possible way that anything else could fit into your stomach, they bring you the dessert menu. It's already included in the price so you can't turn it down. This is when we somehow managed to eat passion fruit cheesecake, pineapple pie and ice cream and coffee. I'm not sure how I haven't thrown up yet.