The best meal ever!

I was passing through Migori about a week ago and checked into one of those budget hotels that cost Sh1,500 per night.

Because I was only booked for bed and breakfast at this hotel, I decided to call up an old friend whom I know to live in the town, to meet me for dinner.

I didn’t want anything fancy… the plan was simply to stroll along the main road until I chanced upon a restaurant.

It was around 8:30pm and most places were surprisingly already closed. We finally came across a restaurant that was open and while I couldn’t make much of it from the outside, I followed my friend in. Turned out this spot was called Alberries, and the tables downstairs were very closely packed yet we wanted to have a somewhat intimate conversation.

We therefore took the stairs up and this space was so dark you would think it was specifically meant to serve wives or husbands who had extra wives or husbands that their main wife or husband was never to find out about.

The ceiling was also slanted and really low at the centre of the room and even at 5’7, I had to crouch just to get to our table.

NO MENU

A waitress informed us that there was no menu and she would instead be telling us the specials. They serve local dishes and we both ordered fish, but she came back about 10 minutes later to say there was only one left, so my friend – because I was dead set on eating fish – changed his order to fried liver.

The waitress disappeared into the darkness. I saw a cockroach crawling across a dim wall at the opposite end of the room.

I then realised that if I looked below, I could see what the cooks were doing in the kitchen, but this wasn’t your strategic “open kitchen for patrons that enjoy the theatric of watching their dish being prepared”.

I intentionally stopped looking.

The waitress reappeared out of the shadows like a thief in the night, and I subconsciously pressed my purse closer to my chest. She had a jug and small basin for us to wash our hands, and shortly after, the food was served.

The food was oh so good! The tilapia was perfectly deep fried on both sides and I devoured it on both sides before tucking into the crispy brain and eyes, leaving nothing but bones, fins and empty eye sockets in my wake. “That is the work of an expert,” said my friend, in what may have been either awe or sheer terror.

Their sukuma wiki was also crunchy and very fresh like it had just been plucked from some back alley on order.

The ugali portion was so huge that had I even gotten halfway, I may have sunk into a food coma till 2019.

The total bill was also only Sh650, which I paid because I’m the one who invited my friend out.