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MVITA
GRILL - NYALI BEACH HOTEL
STILL,
THE 'BEST BAND' AND THE 'BEST
MUSIC' - ANYWHERE ALONG THE COAST
Coastweek
- - I suppose one can attribute it to fashion, but have you
noticed that whenever a group of people sits together and is happily
of one accord about a particular subject, there will always be one
miserable naysayer who takes great glee in tossing a conversational
hand grenade and expressing an entirely contrary opinion ?
The objective to
stimulate controversy and see how many people will perform an
ideological 180 degree turn ultimately to agree with the "tosser".
And so it is that I have
on more than one occasion heard people loudly declaim:
"Oh, I've never
had even a half decent meal at the Mvita Grill".
I can't understand this
myself, writes NOSHER.
With the exception of
one Valentine's night about six years ago when everything from soup to
nuts went hysterically wrong, I've never had a bad meal there.
But, as some M.P.s are
wont to say, I must declare an interest.
If the Mvita Grill
served only baked beans from a bucket garnished with dead badger, it
would still be up there amongst my favourites for the very good reason
that it has the best band and the best music anywhere on the Coast.
I could listen to Ed
Silveira and his band endlessly, and the combination of the music,
ambience and food make the Mvita Grill a very special place.
Mrs. Nosher and I quite
often go there a deux, and as Mrs. N remarked this is one of
the few restaurants which has "girls menus" i.e. menus with
no prices.
Something which must
encourage the sale of lobsters to female diners.
On our last visit we
started with smoked marlin and a soufflé.
Unfortunately the smoked
fish was crumbly and dry and not very enjoyable whereas the soufflé
was absolutely perfect in every respect.
I understand that in
this humid climate it's not always easy to turn out a good soufflé,
but this was firm and pert ... oh ! and tasty apparently.
Starters swiftly dealt
with we had the "palate cleanser"; a silky smooth citrus
sorbet and then were given the option of the salad before or with the
main course.
We dispensed with the
salad altogether and went straight for the mains.
I chose the Surf and
Turf; essentially lobster and chicken flambéed with a mushroom sauce.
Now some people (foodies
mainly) think that if you're going to mix seafood and meat you may as
well start eating chocolate and anchovy log, sardine and apricot
yoghort and round it all off with gorgonzola and raspberry parfait.
But I think it's okay,
and it's fun to watch the waiter doing the flambéing.
Our waiter Pius, is
obviously the main man when it comes to flambees: he's as bald
as a billiard ball and smolders.
Not really.
My beloved went for the
fillets of red snapper and declared it an excellent if rather large
dish.
In fact the main course
portions are rather large and so dinner at the Mvita Grill
should be an unhurried affair.
The pudding trolley is
always worth a look; not necessarily for the desserts but for the
design of the trolley, which looks like something Kenya Railways used
for line maintenance work in the early '50s.
Puds are not a Mvita
Grill strong point and I feel they would be better to concentrate
on a smaller, nicer choice. Nevertheless we went for apple pie and
brandy snaps, which Mrs. Nosh said were filled with fake cream tasting
like sweet shaving foam.
I am still wondering how
she knows this taste.
We drank a bottle of
French wine for a change, and then resorted to perfectly acceptable
house wine by the glass as we sat and digested and let Ed's musical
magic wash over us.
Aaah !
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