At about 8:00pm, I headed up to the dining car. Although there was no set dress code per se, given the ambience of a luxurious train experience, I felt I should dress in my finest duds. By backpacker’s standards, this amounted to a pair of black Levi 501s and a blue button down Oxford shirt. My best shoes were some low cut semi-hiking boots. They looked better than my everyday dusty but comfortable old running shoes.
In the Welwitschia dining car, I was greeted by the hostess, Sholana, and shown to my own table. By contrast, on Amtrak and ViaRail I’d have been seated at any table that had an open seat. Forced communality, I’d call it. The majority of the passengers on this train were traveling in their own groups, however. Though I’m sure many of them spoke English, it was not their preferred language. Add to this the fact that I was the only single traveler on board and it not only made sense but was actually preferable to have my own table.
Water was poured and a bread roll was placed on my bread plate. The menu was presented in a nice leather binder and I was given a couple of minutes to peruse its contents:
WELWITSCHIA RESTAURANT
STARTER
Fresh Oysters on Coarse Salt
Served with lemon and Tabasco Sauce
Biltong Soup
Served with bread sticks
Watermelon and Spansek Salad
Presented on a bed of crisp lettuce garnished with Feta cheese
MAIN COURSE
Steamed Chicken Breast with Honey Mustard Sauce
Served with sautéed Potatoes
Ostrich Medallions with Green Figs and Port Sauce
Garnished with deep-fried leeks and served with sautéed potatoes
Seafood Potjie
Served with savoury rice
Vegetable Lasagna
All main courses are served with seasonal vegetables
DESSERT
Cheese Platter
Hot Mud Pudding
Swiss Roll served with fresh cream
Assorted Fruit Kebab
Wow – To an omnivore like me, everything looked good! I’ve only recently come to enjoy oysters, so I definitely wanted a plate of those. I was informed that I could have either soup or salad, but not both. Hmm… okay then, make it the soup. Although I wasn’t that keen on the biltong I’d had earlier in the lounge car, I just had a feeling that the soup might be worth a try. For my entrée, I wanted to try the ostrich since that certainly wasn’t something I could expect to find on many North American menus. Alas, I was informed that the ostrich had never been loaded in Windhoek and had been replaced by an Oryx Fillet. That’ll be fine, I replied. One won’t find those in North America either!
Given the standard I’ve set with my other reports, I was tempted to take pictures but I didn’t want to disturb the other diners with the flashes. On airplanes, the overhead lights provide more than enough light for a good photo. The lighting in this dining car consisted of dimmed side wall lighting coupled with candles on the tables. The overall ambience was very nice indeed.
As for the food, it was excellent! The presentations were very impressive as well. My oysters, all six of them, were artfully arranged in the center of a plate surrounded by plenty of crushed rock salt. A separate tray of three different types of Tabasco sauce was presented on the side. The Biltong soup was far and away the best soup I’ve had in a long while! It was creamy and flavorful with plenty of finely shredded biltong to add to the flavor, not to mention texture. Delicious! As for the Oryx Fillet, it tasted very much like beef but with a slightly richer flavor. Nutty, perhaps? It was served with a piquant sauce which was itself superb but even without the sauce the meat had an excellent texture and flavor. Highly recommended!
I passed on the cheese offering but did try the Swiss Roll with cream and orange slices. Sinfully decadent!
Afterwards, I retired to the Spitzkoppe Lounge for a final Windhoek Lager. This beer is crafted using only organic ingredients and is really quite crisp and tasty.
Lounge life
Sunset vista as seen while rolling across the Namib Desert
Sunset vista as seen while rolling across the Namib Desert
I was briefly tempted to go and check out the Starview Bistro but after such a long day which started with my 5:00am arrival in Windhoek and had included with more than a few beers, I was feeling ready for bed.
I arrived back at Oryx car, Suite 2 to find that my bed had already been lowered and made up. The bed folded down from the wall and was a good three feet wide and about six and a half feet long. It included a soft and fluffy duvet, two pillows and a large chocolate mint. Even the towel from my earlier shower had been replaced and a fresh bottle of water had been placed at my bedside table.
I’d like to rent this room for a month!
Comfortable bed on the Desert Express
I’ve always enjoyed sleeping on a train. The muted clickity clack and the gentle motion of the train car is very conducive to a good sleep for me. To avoid arriving in Swakopmund at 3:00am, the
Desert Express pulls off on a siding for the night at about 11:00pm. It resumes the journey at about 5:00am. Since I’d turned my bedside lamp off at just after 10:30pm, I still got to enjoy the sounds and sensations of the rails and was asleep moments later.