Uganda Day 30: Il Patio
Brace yourselves, it's going to be another food post. But first, let me catch you up on work. Today was much like yesterday, sitting in the boardroom, staring off into the distance and wondering if I'd ever see the contents of this or that webpage. (I put the odds at around 50/50.) More interesting was the latter part of the afternoon, when we met with our supervisor to discuss our findings from the Sexual Offences Bill yesterday. Concerns were clarified, recommendations were refined, and I think we came out of it with some good points to present to the Committee. Speaking of which, we managed to snag an invitation, so if all goes according to plan tomorrow, Aliana and I will be there to observe the presentation in the afternoon! Hopefully this doesn't turn out like our visit to court, but I can't imagine it would. How exciting! And in any event it will be nice to get out of the office for a while.
Now for the food. Today's gastronomical adventure was dinner at an Italian restaurant called Il Patio. After work, I had a bit of time at home before heading out on a boda through your typical Kampala "jam" made worse by a collision. That's the great thing about bodas, though—nothing really slows you down too much.
I should have taken a picture of the walkway leading into the restaurant, but I didn't think of it. It's attached to a casino, and it's all quite glamorous. The word "opulent" comes to mind. The restaurant is tucked in behind, opening onto a lovely little courtyard with grass and lattices and other such things.
And the other end:
It really is a nice setting for a meal. And as much as I'm talking about opulence and courtyards, it wasn't super expensive or anything. Certainly not enough to stop me from having three courses and a glass of wine. First up, tomato soup, because Lord knows I can't resist:
I have a complicated relationship with untested Italian restaurants. On the one hand, I'm always cautious about ordering a pasta, because you never really know what you're going to get. That said, I tend to think of pasta as the true measure of an Italian restaurant, and besides which, I can rarely resist it anyway. Long story short: I caved, but thankfully it was pretty good.
I wasn't planning on ordering dessert, but I made the decision to get an espresso (being at an Italian restaurant and all) and it snowballed from there. I went form zero to apple pie and ice cream in ten seconds.
You'll have to excuse the gratuitous images of food in this post. I'm just so happy whenever I get out of the house for meals that I had no part in preparing.
After dinner I took a boda home and here I am. It's rather late (for me, on a weekday, being perpetually exhausted) so I am going to post this, hop in the shower, and crash for the night. Have a lovely evening!