Where To Eat In Garissa-Town

by Michael Bear · 2009-02-03 01:23:00 UTC
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Which is actually somewhat misleading, seeing as I've only been to Garissa - in northeastern Kenya - twice, and neither time ventured further than the Nomad Palace Hotel.   Yet limited experience aside, I come to praise the Nomad Palace, or at least their goat brochettes.

We arrived in Garissa early Sunday afternoon, just in time for the lunch buffet.  Which was neither particularly good nor particularly bad; certainly not memorable, though the pea soup looked decent.  I would recommend the small lamb-chops; I wasn't quite courageous enough to try the Irish stew.

(I've always believed that discretion is the better part of valor, at least where unidentified meats are concerned.)

Spent the balance of the afternoon and early evening in meetings at the hotel - the Nomad Palace serving as Garissa's answer to Ricks' Cafe in Casablanca, albeit without roulette in the back.  Our final meeting finished around 8:00.

And then dinner.  The hotel set up a barbeque at the outdoor patio, choices of goat, steak, chicken tika or fish.  For some reason, I find it impossible to pass up goat brochettes; my co-researcher ordered the fish.  The brochettes were slightly charred, and near perfect - granted, my standards aren't particularly high, but it was a far better meal than I'd been expecting.

So, to sum up - if you find yourself in Garissa, and enjoy goat, it's certainly worth a trip to the Nomad Palace at dinner-time.

(N.B. - we drove up in a hired car, but yesterday I decided to take the bus back from Garissa to Nairobi.  Seven hours spent sitting at the very front, next to the driver- I couldn't decide whether I enjoyed being able to look at the views through the front window, or whether I would have much enjoyed being further in the back, where I didn't have to watch us pass other buses and large trucks on poorly-paved, twisting road.  That said, was able to distract myself by helping to hold up the dashboard, which fell apart about half-way through the trip.)

[Photo of the Nomad Palace Hotel]

Michael Bear
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