Vamos a comer

Good ol' Bairro Central. Lunch in the neighborhood around my office can be a challenge.

Directly adjacent to my office a very nice woman makes hamburgers (simples or completo), egg sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, and fried cornmeal things called bagias that are sort of like hush puppies. The food has some flavor, she's quick and enterprising, and the price is right: roughly two bucks for a hamburger completo, which includes a fried egg and soggy chips (french fries) inside the bun (don't ask because I don't know either). But it's easy to grow weary of the limited and very unhealthy menu, and the food sometimes (often) gives me the squirts.

Mimmos, a ten minute walk, is part of a South African chain. There you can get tasteless pizza, tasteless burgers, mediocre pastas, a very bizarre chicken kabob thingy, or a decent Portuguese-style grilled half chicken with chips and salad. Mimmos is more expensive, the menu also gets old quickly, and the food is generally uninspiring. But it seems to be easy on the intestines, the walk is nice, and one of the day managers is an old Afrikaner lady who screams at the staff in one of the most gravelly old smoker's voices I've ever hear, which is sometimes entertaining. Somewhat more entertaining, though simultaneously disturbing, is the local practice of young women sending their names and phone numbers to me on a scraps of paper via the server. It would be flattering except that recently the name written on the piece of paper was "Hurricane." I'm no genius, but I'm guessing she was being more entrepreneurial than romantic.

Finally, there's Mira Flora, a quick three-minute walk from the office. It's sort of a beer joint cum sandwich shop that is often out of bread, which in my book is a very important ingredient of a sandwich. I also know for a fact that there's a bread shop around the corner. Sometimes they run out of cheese, the sandwich machine was once broken for over a week, and the service is ... bad. Atrocious to be frank. The food is OK and it's cheap, but the combination of apathy and incompetence led me to boycott the place entirely. I'm into cultural sensitivity, but not when I'm hungry.

Maputo has good food. Just not in the neighborhood where my office is located. Bottom line: I'm bringing my lunch from now on.