When I first arrived in Kampala it was funny to hear how Ugandans were talking a bit, even in an infatuated way, about Nairobi, referring to it almost as the big metropolis in East Africa.
I have been going to Nairobi for a while now, exactly since 2002 at least once per year, and I always looked at it in comparison to London mainly, so from that perspective it was smaller and not particularly glamorous. This time round, however, comparing it to Kampala the picture was much more exciting!
Nairobi has also changed anyway. One of the things that friends and family commented the most about was new places, my husband and I were even reading about this in a local newspaper too. A couple told us to go to Zen Gardens, I must admit I was very impressed with the place and the menu. The place is set in quite a big compound, and you can find a Japanese restaurant and a cafe. The gardens are lovely and the menu at the cafe (I didn't manage to see the one for the restaurant) could well be a menu out of a trendy modern cafe in London with 'new' salads including bulgur wheat which is still unheard of around here.
We also went to Brew Bistro, this time for drinks, it has been there for longer but it was my first time and I liked it, again a good combination of trendy and modern design with a reasonable offering of drinks/food.
Although we didn't go to Sierra Lounge (in Yaya centre) or Onami (Japanese sushi restaurant in Westgate), we also heard very good things about them. In fact the local article I was referring to was talking about Sierra Lounge, and how his owner had looked to set up a new place that was different to what was there before, but also a place that somehow reflects his favourite places in other big global cities, like New York, London, etc.
We went to a couple of my other favourite places in Nairobi, like Arts Cafe (Westgate shopping mall) which has some of the most fantastic desserts I have tried anywhere around the world, even the actual Westgate Shopping Mall, with the many shops and diversity of offering is very refreshing coming out of Kampala.
With all these new places and new trends going on, I must admit that it did feel like Nairobi has definitely become the new 'metropolis' of East Africa. But what I find most interesting is the capacity of the new generations of Kenyans of liking both the very new, trendy and modern places, and the traditional 'Gipsies' and 'nyama choma' (barbecued meats) joints, they do feel at ease in both scenarios without any problem. I suppose it is not a dichotomy after all, but the result of the union of tradition and perhaps, let's call it like that, globalisation.
In general I was very excited to go around the supermarket too, can you believe it? Of course in Nairobi I could see all the brands that I had been missing in the previous two months in Kampala, like my Helmann's mayonnaise and some items like Italian pesto etc... I suppose that my realisation here is how attached we are to brands, when in reality, bottom line, what matters really in live is not if the mayonnaise is Hellmann's or even if mayonnaise is so essential, but there you go, I suppose marketing directors around the world make a good job selling us more than brands, a way of living.
Maybe the final measure of a city becoming a world metropolis is how globalised it is... maybe after all Kampala is not too bad, in spite of not finding Hellmann's mayonnaise here, I still like the local flavour in many other ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment