CARNIVORE – THE BEAST OF A FEAST

Our last stop for the day was to eat dinner at Carnivore.

This was mainly for Shane, as Shelly and the girls aren’t the biggest meat eaters, but by jove Shane, Eric and I were.  It is one place you do need to come to if you are a ‘carnivore’.  We arrived a little after 5.15pm and I thought they didn’t open for dinner until 6pm, so we were prepared to settle on a few drinks till they opened.  Well we were pleasantly surprised when we were ushered straight into the restaurant and to see that we weren’t the only ones seated.  Phew!  I mean we only ate lunch like 5 hours ago after all!!!

Carnivore is an open-air restaurant and as the name would suggest, its specialty is meat, and features an all-you-can-eat meat buffet.  It is very popular with the tourists and in 1999, the restaurant seated 350 people and the restaurant's 330 employees served over 1000 people per day.  The Carnivore opened its doors in September 1980 to instant success. The food, service and atmosphere are strikingly different from anything ever seen in Kenya. The Carnivore is a meat specialty restaurant and it is referred to as 'the ultimate 'Beast of a Feast'.  Twice voted amongst the world’s 50 best restaurants by an expert panel in ‘Restaurant ‘ magazine.  The Carnivore since its inception has played host to over 2 million customers from across the globe. 

So what is the secret?  The meat is constantly basted and turned until cooked to perfection, making the meat succulent and well flavoured. The Carnivore doesn’t conform to the familiar restaurant traditions of passing out menus and waiting for people to order. Diners simply take their seats on the Zebra striped chairs and the movable feast begins.  First comes the soup of the day then a sizzling cast-iron plate is placed in front of each guest along with a plate of home baked brown bread and butter.  Then an army of carvers wearing zebra striped aprons and straw hats then move from table to table carrying the Maasai swords laden with different prime meats deliberately carving unlimited amounts onto the sizzling, cast iron plates.  The beast of feast begins with whole joints of meat - legs of lamb and pork, ostrich, rumps of beef, sirloins, racks of lamb, spare ribs, sausages, chicken wings, skewered kidneys, crocodile and ox balls-are roasted on traditional Masan swords over a huge, spectacular charcoal pit which dominates the entrance of the restaurant when you arrive.  The Carnivore was inspired on the Rodízio concept of the Brazilian Churrascaria steak houses.  There is also a small selection of side dishes and an exceptional array of sauces that are made from the Carnivore’s own recipes and stacked on to a double storey-revolving tray in the centre of the table.  The highlight of the feast was watching Shane take a nibble of the ox balls and seeing the girls try a few different meats that they wouldn’t normally eat, with the dangle of the dessert carrot at the end of the meal.

The feeding frenzy doesn’t stop until defeat is declared by the over-fed guests who signal that enough is enough by lowering of a carnivore paper flag that is perched atop the central tray and when you think there is no room for anything else; dinner is then followed by dessert and coffee. The full meal including a soup course is at a set price of 3250KSH (44AUD) which is expensive, when you can get something similar at other places around the city cheaper, but they are not ‘Carnivore’ and I think it is worth paying the money at least once to dine here on a visit to Nairobi.  The atmosphere of The Carnivore combines the rustic feel of a rural environment with the feeling of a medieval banqueting hall and is accomplished by the use of streams and tropical gardens throughout the restaurant, and by using rough-hewn beams and local woods. 

Another famous feature to set the tone of the Carnivore experience is the house cocktail The 'Dawa' (which means medicine or magic potion in Swahili).  In other words, a Dawa is said to be so potent that it will cure whatever ails you!!!  I had wondered what happens if you have too many of them and a friend Cris, who visited a few years ago, answered my question after our dinner at Carnivore the next morning when she woke still drunk and had a killer headache for the rest of the day!!!  The recipe is based on a famous Brazilian drink that was introduced to Kenya and it is now one of the most widely consumed cocktails in the country today.  There are 3 main ingredients including vodka, lime and honey and when you get your drink at Carnivore it comes with a ‘Dawa’ stick and you spend the next 5-10 minutes mixing in the honey and sugar that has settle in the bottom of your glass, and mushing the lime out of the lime-and it is certainly worth the wait and has fast become my favourite cocktail!  I have fallen in LOVE with this drink.  I figured it was okay to have a few tonight as the calories don’t count when you are on holiday trying to not think too much of the sugar and honey component!  I also like to think that the actual dawa stick that comes with your drink is a keep sake and we left Carnivore with 9 of them in my handbag!

So it was an amazing finish to what was an amazing day.  There was one thing that we didn’t get to see that was on ‘the list’ and that was the Bomas-which is like a village and cultural centre, but we have started a saying that we need to save some things for the Elkin return – one day.  But we got everything else done that we had set out to do and I know that the Elkins enjoyed their whirlwind tour of day one.  I would have loved to have visited the National Museum, the Bomas, Kazuri Factory and the Karen Blixen Museum to name a few-but they will just have to be done on another time.  We were back home at 9pm, and you would think that after such a long day we would be hitting the hay, but this is the Elkins we are talking about and after putting the sleepy girls into bed (my bed) we had a few night caps before finally retiring with another big day planned tomorrow.  It is a shame that the Elks are not here in this magnificent city longer-but like all people who visit Africa-they will be back-the country has won some more hearts and I am proud to call Kenya and the continent of Africa my home.