One Of Those Moments

People who know me know that food is important to me, that I appreciate what I eat and that when something is good, I speak up. I’m speaking up now because this afternoon, I had one of the best lunches of my life.

After we finished doing some email at a local internet café run by a very helpful guy from Mississauga (!), our new friend suggested a few places to eat. The pick of the lot, according to him, was Zambi, an up-scale resto down on the maritime drive and far enough from the downtown that we would never have found it on our own. He said that we could safely walk there during the day so we decided to head over for lunch and scratch our itch for some Mozambican prawns, about which we had heard so much...

The walk was nice and we passed by a pretty interesting juxtaposition… ie: shiny new shopping mall across from dilapidated old warehouses… Maputo is changing quickly but at the same time the blight remains, a testament to the war and its aftermath.

I’m getting used to being the only white guy walking around--it’s a good lesson in being a minority--but here in Maputo, there really are not many tourists and if you do walk about rather than take a cab, it’s quite the experience. People are universally friendly (sidebar: even the two cops who just shook us down when we popped out to grab some light snacks were relatively friendly. They demanded to see our passports and then asked for money so that they could get a couple of pops… we refused to hand over cash but did drop off a couple cans of Coke and some chips on the way back to the hotel…)

When we arrived at Zambi, we saw immediately that it’s not a tourist joint: more like a place for power-lunches and high society types -- judging by the number of suits and the jewels on display. Our being white foreigners helped us in that we were not exactly dressed-up (especially me in my t-shirt!). Nevertheless, a warm welcome was proffered and that led to the quick choice of a two plates of medium-sized prawns and a salad accompanied by a couple glasses of house white, which was both ample and good.



The prawns were sliced length-wise and lightly grilled before being coated in an exquisite butter, lemon, carrot (!) and garlic sauce. I’ve been lucky enough to have eaten many shrimp in my life (not least of all during my stint in the kitchen at Red Lobster in 2nd year and during my stays in Spain) and I can remember some pretty fabulous meals featuring them… especially the time that Josechu’s dad bought a paper bag full of live ones in Valencia and they walked themselves to the pot… now that was fresh! But even those couldn’t hold a candle to these at Zambi: the combination of freshness, the grill and the butter was wonderful and the fact that they never seemed to end (more than a dozen on the plate? I lost count) only added to the feeling that this was one of those meals when everything falls into place and the combination of taste, place and moment all combine to make for something special.

The Catalan prawn saying (you have to love a culture that has a saying for eating shrimp!): “Xup el cap i suc els dits” [Suck the head and lick the fingers] certainly applied here and the slightly grainy and bitter taste of the head provided a savoury contrast to the sweet flesh. Since Hélène refuses to eat prawn brain, I got extra. (Stephanie: this totally reminded me of the birthday lunch that you treated me to in Chicago when we had those fried shrimp heads [something ebi]… ha ha, the look on the Midwestern lady’s face was priceless…)

The shared dessert after this feast of crustaceans was a gem in itself: a chocolate fondant with a very thin crust and nicely cinnamon-infused chocolate that streamed out when liberated from the cake. Mmm! And I’m not even big on dessert!

A café to finish and then a nice walk back downtown and one of the best lunches ever became a deliciously recent memory…