Over at Ask the Pilot: The World's Coolest Restaurant! Fine Dining In a Converted DC-10. Plus, the Sad Confessions of a Non-Foodie.
Photos and full commentary are here:
http://www.askthepilot.com/dc10-restaurant/
Some excerpts...
I'M THE FARTHEST THING from a foodie. The very word foodie irritates me. It goes back to my childhood, maybe. I was raised in what was perhaps the must gastronomically unadventurous family in America. A "salad," as I knew it, consisted of a bowl of iceberg lettuce doused with steakhouse dressing. We had our pizzas Margherita style, with sauce and cheese only. The idea of adding a topping was almost frighteningly exotic. I don't think I set foot in a Chinese restaurant until I was in my twenties. I was thirty before I could use chopsticks or knew what a burrito was.
Food, to me, was always a mundane, unexciting experience. I travel a lot, but to this day I consider dining out to be a chore. This is heresy to a lot of people, I know, but I'm perfectly happy with a burger from room service or some easy-to-grab street food. Unless, that is, we're talking about dinner inside a converted McDonnell Douglas DC-10. Now
this is a restaurant to get excited about.
Welcome to La Tante DC-10 Restaurant, located just outside Kotoka International Airport in the friendly capital city of Accra, Ghana. For several years this venerable aircraft sat derelict next to a hangar, sans engines and wearing the sun-bleached colors of the defunct Ghana Airways. The hulk was destined for the scrap pile when, in 2013, it was purchased by the Vindira Company. It was towed down an embankment to its current resting spot, and refurbished into a full-service restaurant with seating for 118 passengers -- er, diners. It's hard to miss, looming just behind the Marina Mall and painted a ghastly green.
I love the repurposing of commercial aircraft. La Tante is one of several similar projects around the world, including a 747-turned-hotel outside the airport in Stockholm. There's something about this idea, the recasting of the jet into a wholly unexpected role, that causes one to reflect on the astonishing capabilities of commercial aviation. When you're sitting on a plane at the airport, it's easy to take for granted the fact that you'll soon be soaring through the sky, en route to some exotic city halfway around the world, a feat that would have seemed unimaginable just a hundred years ago. It's different, though, when that plane becomes a restaurant, and you're sitting inside and suddenly you think about how this place, this entire
building, essentially, once flew through the air at hundreds of miles per hour, calling port in London, New York, Johannesburg, and dozens of cities in between. How is it even possible?
http://www.askthepilot.com/wp-conten...ome-Aboard.jpg
As much as I enjoy La Tante, it's not my favorite eating spot in Accra. That honor belongs to Tandoor, an Indian place in the Cantonments neighborhood. Tandoor might be my favorite restaurant
anywhere. It's got a gigantic menu concentrating on South Indian specialties (that means spicy). I order either the coconut-chicken kebab (not so spicy) or the chicken Madras (where's the fire extinguisher?). The menu includes approximately four-hundred varieties of naan and roti. Seating is inside or outside, garden-style on heavy wooden benches and tables. The atmosphere is very laid-back, though you might hear Nik, the manager, berating his staff when the service gets too slow.
Dining out just isn't my thing, but I do have my spots. La Tante and Tandoor are two of them.
Speaking of West Africa, if you're in Senegal, I recommend a Lebanese place called Le Layal, near the Place L'independance and within walking distance of the Pullman hotel. It's nothing fancy -- which is partly why I like it -- with good prices and good food. Once you get past the "Testicles With Garlic and Lemon," and the "Homos with Chopped Meat," the menu is both coherent and tasty.
Down in Mexico City, meanwhile, you might find me at Fonda el Refugio, an historic restaurant on Calle Waterloo in the Zona Rosa that dates to 1954. "Historic" implies pricey, but the entrees here are well within the average traveler's budget. The waitstaff is attentive to a fault, and the food arrives quickly. My regular dish is the carne asada a la tabasqueña. Get there early to avoid the crowd.
And let's not forget Abou Tarek, in Cairo. Everybody in Cairo, if not in all of Egypt, is familiar with Abou Tarek, a four-story building on a grimy street full of tire and muffler shops, just off the eastern end of 6 October Bridge, a few blocks in from the Nile. It's been there since 1950, founded and (still) owned by Youssef Zaki. Zaki is maybe Cairo's closest thing to a celebrity chef, a sort of Colonel Sanders of Egyptian fast food, whose portrait stares down at you from the walls. Walk in, take a seat, and within thirty seconds you're dining on the restaurant's sole entree, that most delectable of Egyptian treasures: a steaming bowl of koshary -- a carbohydrate bomb of noodles, lentils, chickpeas and fried onions, topped with a spicy tomato sauce and however much chili you can handle. All for the equivalent of about $1.50. Abou Tarek is not fine or formal dining by any stretch, but it's tons of calories and tons of fun.
The full commentary, and tons of great photos, are here:
http://www.askthepilot.com/dc10-restaurant/
Yours Hungrily,
Patrick Smith