When you travel, you expect, and even look forward to, new experiences. New foods are an important part of that. So I should probably be more welcoming of this but I'm struggling.
There seem to be a lot of buffets in Luanda. They're not cut rate affairs, at least in the areas I'm visiting on this trip--this isn't Old Country Buffet. And they're pretty expensive: the lunch place, at the discounted price they give the National Bank, is $25 plus drinks; at the hotel, an altogether more lavish spread, it's $70 plus drinks.
(I'm still trying to get used to the financial scale of things in this poor, oil-rich country: the doorman at the bank hit me up for a handout--$25! Whatever happened to 'Hey buddy can you spare a dime'?)
So I went up to the bar the first day and pushed back the roll-top on the salver (I think it's called something like that) and there inside were three large fish, each just under two feet long, with herbs and greens as a garnish, great wide gashes in their sides and big round eyes, looking out at me with what appeared to be surprise. The top clattered a bit as I put it right back down and moved on to the next, which I had reason to believe might contain something from the vegetable kingdom. It did.
Two days later, I did the same thing; flat learning curve, I guess. I mean, I could probably have handled more shocked, roasted fish. This time, though, the curving silver top revealed two little suckling pigs.
They were arranged so their little faces looked out at the room, and, just now, at me. Their tiny ears were perked up, their round black eyes were open and excited, and if they hadn't been already partly eaten, they looked as if they might have up and trotted out on their tiny little feet.
I'm sorry: I ain't with that.
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