Ventana Review: Nairobi Restaurant Week 2017

The first Friday of Nairobi Restaurant Week 2017 found my mum, my sister and I at Ventana on Lower Kabete Road, celebrating a "Dhawan women's night out". I'd been there before early last year, and I'd enjoyed my experience, so I was eager to try it again. The NRW 2017 three course menu for dinner and a cocktail was 1,950 Ksh. per person, which was a pretty good deal.

For my cocktail, I chose to have a Chivas Collins - Chivas, lemonade and soda water with apple slices. To be honest, I wasn't the hugest fan of this one. The Chivas taste came through almost harshly, but it did have a pleasant aftertaste. Apple gummy bears, if I'm being honest! The presentation could've been better too - the regular supermarket straw slightly dampened my enthusiasm for the drink.

For my first course, I chose the chicken tortilla soup. Given the name, I was expecting some sort of creamy, Tex-Mex goodness. I was definitely surprised when I got something reminiscent of an Indian curry! There was fenugreek, tomatoes, green onions, corn, avocado and tortilla chips. I quite liked it, although I would have made a slight change - add the tortilla chips later on so that they remained crunchy.

Yes, all three of us started with the soup. Runs in the family, some might say!

For the main meal, my sister and I settled on the sesame chicken, while our mum went for the tikka chicken. The presentation of both of these was quite lovely. The only weird thing was that the restaurant forgot to give a spoon for the tikka until prompted.

The sesame chicken had a lovely flavour, although I detected more honey, soy and pepper than sesame. The spice level was perfect too! Unfortunately, I think the chicken was a wee bit overcooked, as it was a little bit tough - as was the rice.

The tikka chicken was a pleasant surprise. It had a creamy tomato base, and was not overpoweringly spicy. Different than tikka chicken in most Nairobi restaurants, but different in a nice way.

Tikka chicken with naan and rice

Sesame chicken with rice

For the dessert, we decided to get one of each and share - a sticky toffee pudding, the molten chocolate cake and a sorbet.

This was EASILY my favourite course of the meal!! The sticky toffee pudding was amazing, and I need to return for it. While the molten chocolate cake wasn't exactly... well, molten... it was still good, and not sickeningly sweet. Perhaps a different name would have served the dish better? The sorbet was delightfully refreshing on the warm January night, and unless I'm very much mistaken, was a mix of strawberry and tree tomato.

Overall experience? The service was fast and friendly, and the ambience was nice too. The food could've been better overall, though. I'm willing to give it another shot for the food - as I said earlier, I've been to Ventana once before, and loved what I ordered then.

Have any of you been to Ventana yet? If so, what was your experience?

Five years of The Kenyan Nomad: Looking back

How time does fly! I can't believe that my little blog is five - what a journey it has been! I thought it would be fun to look back on a few posts I've done over the years. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My first post was an attempt to restart a blog that I had started writing four years ago - back then, it was more of an extended, and public mailing list. This was a week after I turned 20, and I think the 'new decade' brought me some inspiration to write that I'm still going on! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few months later, I shared some pictures from a trip to the Masai Mara. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During the spring semester that year, I did a few posts from a series I had posted

Restaurant Review: Christmas at the Arbor

Happy holidays, everyone! As I write this, I'm sitting in the U.S., having travelled here to spend time with family (and see friends if I get lucky). Saturday the 17th of December, however, found me in a food coma after a delicious Christmas meal with Darshani (of Cupcakes to Curry) at the Arbor in Lavington, Nairobi. The Arbor has a very laid-back, chic outdoor ambiance, well-suited to Saturday brunch or a dinner out with friends. Darshani and I were there to do a review for a podcast, and thus ended up having a multi-course meal at 10 am on a Saturday morning (accompanied by various cocktails, of course, much to the envy of the other diners)! The weather was perfect December weather - warm and sunny, forbidding any sort of indoor seating at all. For my non-Southern hemisphere readers, you'll just have to visit Kenya to know what I mean when I say 'perfect December weather' and 'warm' in the same sentence. It was started about two years ago by Shamini, original

The Mayura: Restaurant Review

Happy new year, everyone! It's been a while, so I thought to break tradition and post on a Tuesday this time - I'm sure you're in need of new restaurant recommendations, right? Located in Kenrail towers, the Mayura is an Indian restaurant that you may not have been to yet. I'd heard about it, but never been, so when I was invited to do a review, I naturally jumped at the chance. Located in Kenrail Towers, the ambience of the Mayura has peacock-themed, warm interiors. There's a lot of space to sit down, both inside and outside. The restaurant is the brainchild of Rajiv Segal, who has a corporate background and being from Delhi, had a high standard of quality and had developed a distinctive palate, which he wanted to bring to the people in Nairobi. The menu was chosen for us by Rajiv (and boy, did we eat a lot!). For starters, we had some paneer tikka, mutton chops, fish amritsari and banu kebab (chicken). The paneer tikka was absolutely amazing! The paneer was fresh

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