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SPLENDID
EVENING IN
A BEAUTIFUL SETTING
The
Aquamarine Restaurant - Mtwapa Creek
Coastweek
- - In the 'Nosher'
household, last year will be remembered as the 'Year of the Raffle'.
No matter where you went
last year you were obliged to buy raffle tickets, and unless you
happened to enjoy really bad luck it seemed inevitable that you would
end up with a least one free meal.
Of course the fact that
you had to spend about ten times the actually cost of the free meal in
raffle tickets is neither here nor there.
I suspect the charities
had a good year.
We were lucky enough to
win a Seafood Meze dinner for two at the Aquamarine.
Now 'Mrs. Nosher'
and I haven't been to the Aquamarine for far too long and we always
say we should do it more often because this restaurant surely has the
best location of any of Mombasa's eateries.
We went just before the
New Year when the moon was nearly full and shed a glorious light on
the creek.
Our table was at the
water's edge and romance was in the air.
A spell broken only
slightly by the sound of the automatic bailer from the dhow moored at
the adjacent jetty.
(A sound rather like a
horse taking a long pee. Frequently.)
Winning a set meal also
meant we just arrived, sat down and food started to appear, which was
wonderful.
In fact I was so relaxed
I can't really remember what we had but I think it involved about
seven courses from crudités to lobster with ample portions of
prawns, squid, calamari, oysters, sail fish, snapper or maybe kingfish
and possibly crab in between.
All were presented with
different sauces and arrived at a perfect pace so that by the end we
didn't feel ready to burst.
I would suggest however
that if you are in a large party it would be best if the whole table
chooses the Seafood Meze, because this is not a meal to be
hurried.
Many years ago our table
mixed a la carte and Seafood Meze and by about two
thirds of the way through the meze, the a la carters had all fallen
asleep.
We washed this down with
a very good bottle of Aussie Chardonnay, and cleared the palate
with a fresh lemon sorbet.
A splendid evening in a
beautiful setting.
The Aquamarine describes
itself as "Mombasa's best kept secret" and judging by the
number of covers the night we went one can only feel that perhaps they
are keeping the secret rather too well.
Give it a try as soon as
you can.
If you don't fancy the
drive to Mtwapa in the dark the Restaurant will arrange trans-port for
you, so you have the added attraction of being able to drink limitless
quantities of hooch.
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