Kigali Marriott Hotel
Part Two
Back at the hotel after a long day, I had some dinner and went to bed early.
I was quite disappointed with the hotel's food offerings. Despite being the most expensive hotel in the city, they really dropped the ball. Specifically, there were essentially zero options for people who wanted to have a taste of the local cuisine. The hotel itself housed a pricey (by Kigali standards) Italian restaurant and some other restaurants that solely offered Western food. I really don't understand why hotels do this. Sure, it makes sense to offer foods their clients are familiar with, but that doesn't mean they should ignore the local cuisine entirely.
Taking the Italian restaurant as an example, I've never had excellent pasta in any city that doesn't have a Italian community. Unless they've spent time in Italy or among an Italian community, their cooks wouldn't even know how a bowl of pasta all'amatriciana should taste. The ingredients and techniques just aren't there; I suspect sourcing ingredients like guanciale and Parmigiano Reggiano in Kigali is difficult. It's like trying to a good plate of
la zi ji in Nowhere, U.S.A -- not gonna happen. I just wish these hotels offered the types of dishes that their chefs would cook for themselves at home. Rant over.
So I ordered a greek salad, hamburger and fruit plate. It was ok at best. They forgot to put dressing on the salad and the burger was enormous, just a huge meat puck.
Greek Salad minus Dressing
Burger
Looked good, taste was mediocre
In Rwanda, they have a fruit called the Tree Tomato (Japanese Prune or Tamarillo), which is not commonly available where I live. It's the round fruit with black seeds in the picture below. I gave it another try, but I really hated it. One of the only fruits I've actively hated, the other being the durian. The rest was pretty good.
Fruit Plate
After a long sleep, I awoke the next morning and headed down to the hotel buffet for breakfast. I was the first person there. There was a large variety of food offerings; they even had African, Indian and Chinese breakfast offerings. The Chinese offerings consisted of a "Noodle Station", though I suspect the hotel chefs have no idea what's commonly served for breakfast in China.
Breakfast Buffet
Breakfast Buffet
Breakfast Buffet
Breakfast Buffet
Fruit and Juice
The passion fruit was good, but a bit astringent. Strawberries were delicious.
Fritter, Bread Pudding and White Bun
All quite good, especially the bread pudding
I did make a small mistake when I ordered the omelette. I asked for some birds eye chilies in it, but the cook went a bit overboard. This was too spicy to have more than a few bites.
Omelette
After having a few bites of everything, I headed back to the room to pack up and check out.