Want to know my biggest current fear? Apart from my recent one of Drew getting chomped on by a hyena in a fight over who would get his nicely grilled T-bone steak for dinner (see next post for details)? It’s that I have more fodder for writing a dissertation on expat coffee shops in Botswana than I do for my actual thesis topic on rural-urban socio-economic linkages in Botswana. Yikes. Let’s not let my advisors hear that one. But the fact is, I’ve spent a lot of time in coffee shops here, and when it comes down to it, the majority of customers at these venues are foreigners, whether they be South African safari operators in Maun or US embassy officials in Gaborone. I think I’ve gained insight for better or worse from listening in on their conversations, but I also worry I’ve alienated myself from my actual subjects of study, most of whom have no idea what an “espresso” is.
I frequent these coffee shops despite my reservations for a number of reasons—they make a decent cappuchino; they generally provide a comfy, vibey place to sit, put headphones on and transcribe my interviews; they usually have wireless; and most importantly, they have delicious food. Here is my discovery—while each place I’ve lived (Kasane, Maun and now Gaborone) might not have a lot of options on the coffee shop front, the ones that I manage to find are generally far superior food-wise to any coffee shop I might visit in Berkeley or even the Mission. I’m not making this up! And it’s not just because I’ve been deprived of California foodie culture—even after a week of eating-out extravaganza in London I was psyched to get back to the Kasane coffee shop menu—though I’ll admit their coffee doesn’t even begin to compare to London’s Monmouth coffee. To me, this is further evidence that more options most certainly does not equal better quality, a theory that stems from my firmly held belief that menus with lots of choices are bad and menus with a few items offered are good (case in point: Cheesecake Factory versus Cheeseboard pizzeria. Need I say more?)
The culinary prowess of these out-of-the-way coffee shops might also have something to do with the fact that most of these places were started by individuals who had been excellent cooks and appreciators of delicious food back in their home countries (England, France, etc.) and for whatever life reasons suddenly found themselves in Botswana with a dearth of edible options (for all the reasons I love Botswana, local cuisine is not one of them—it’s just not good). These individuals have then poured all of their love and nostalgia for their home country’s cooking into their own enterprises here in a sort of Like Water for Chocolate fashion (minus the tears and puking guests), which has resulted in homey yet unique dishes that have a tremendous amount of flavor and soul in them. They may not be the most health-conscious—buttery, flaky quiche is a recurring theme—but they are satisfying and leave a girl with a warm, happy feeling in her tummy that just doesn’t happen at the more chain-y restaurants that are also cropping up here in Botswana.
For any of you who may be visiting these places, I’ll give a quick run-down on the highlights. In Kasane, there is the Gallery Africana coffee shop. There is only one coffee shop in town, so you can’t get confused about which one it is! Plus its housed in the same space as a lovely African art gallery with jewelry and artwork sourced from all over the African continent, which makes for nice browsing before or after one’s meal. Basically everything on the menu is delicious, but the sweet woman who runs it reeeally knows how to make pastry crust, so I suggest the quiche and/or pecan-date tart, both of which make use of this scrumptious recipe. And if you’re going to splurge on a milkshake, make sure to get either the mango or banana—the only two made with real fruit (yum yum) as opposed to a syrup base.
In Maun, your options are Hiliary’s or French Connection—I personally much prefer Hiliary’s but then that might be because I’m a brown bread not white bread (even if it’s a French baguette) kinda girl, and Hiliary’s makes hands-down the best homemade country brown bread I have ever tasted. Her creative sandwiches are served on extra-thick slices of this addicting bread, as is the assorted salad lunch plate. And I’m a sucker for a daily special/sampler salad plate! She also happens to make the best fruit crumble ever, next to my mom’s that is. Well actually, I think she must use the same tried and true British recipe for her crumble as my mom, because hers tastes exactly the same, only she uses apricot instead of banana filling. Lastly, and you can ask Drew, she makes a mean cappuchino—again with a lot of love in it given that she uses a hand-pump to make the frothed milk rather than an espresso machine!
Next we come to Gaborone (we are skipping Francistown because there is nothing and I mean NOTHING of note in that town). I will admit that until a few days ago, I marched like a lemming to Mugg and Bean (a South African chain that is sort of a cross between a Chili’s and a Pret a Manger if that makes any sense) for my daily espresso fix and oversized underwhelming muffin. That is, until I discovered Café Dijo, just around the corner. First, there is the name—Dijo means food in Setswana so the place is essentially named Café Food. Hmm. A little funny but here’s the thing—it has some of the better décor/ambiance than any café I know anywhere. Again, seriously! Long pine communal tables, Persian-style rugs and low-lying antiqued white wooden coffee tables (think Garnet Hill style) with patterned sofa chairs give it a rustic-living room feel, while the chalk board menu and broad kitchen counter where you order at the front remind you that you are indeed in a busy breakfast/lunchtime spot. And then there is the food and beverages! First of all they serve chai tea which I find very exciting. Second of all, their baked goods selection, invitingly displaced at the order counter, is phenomenal. I am going to go out on a limb and say that they make possibly the best morning glory muffin in the world. For those of you not familiar with this muffin beyond muffins, I will tell you. A morning glory muffin is a “health” muffin, but not of the bran variety—it is generally a brown-flour based muffin stuffed with any assortment of fruit, nuts and seeds—carrots and sultanas usually being staple ingredients. The one at Café Dijo is pure perfection—crisp crunchy on the outside, yet moist and spongy on the inside (nothing for any Seinfield characters to complain about here), and choc-full of carrots, zucchini, plump juicy raisins, millet seeds (my personal favorite) amongst other seeds, and most importantly, NO WALNUTS (I absolutely detest walnuts, fyi). I ordered one after my lunch of roasted vegetable salad with hummus and feta and a chicken roll, thinking I would take it home as an afternoon teatime snack, but it never made it home. In fact, it didn’t even make it into the to-go bag. It went straight into my belly where it resided there happily (well no, actually, I resided at the coffee shop happily; I don’t know how the muffin felt).
I’ve now waxed on about the food at these coffee shops and left no room to discuss the various strands of conversations I overhear at these places, while I’m supposed to be diligently transcribing audio interviews. Maybe that’s okay. Who needs to hear/read more about eager-beaver aid volunteers or closed-minded expatriates? Suffice to say I have heard enough gabby South African women discussing their calorie intake for a lifetime (is is possible that South African women are an even more obnoxious group of people than South African men??! Forgive (or don’t) my egregious over-generalizations, but really...) I will say that Café Dijo is a pretty interesting place. Because it’s the only coffee shop I’ve been to in Botswana that while predominantly frequented by Caucasians, actually has a relatively diverse clientele. I saw a group of Batswana businessmen lunching at one of the communal tables, two Chinese ladies enjoying their chicken wraps at the next table over, and another group made up of a hodge-podge of ethnicities crowded round the sofa seats—a sight you would never see anywhere else in Botswana. So as boring and drab as Gaborone may seem to be, perhaps there is something to be said for what appears to be its cosmopolitan edge! Clearly money and class factor into this “melting pot” dynamic, but I’ll save that for another blog…for now, this is Botswana’s urban spoon, signing off!
