La Prima: Shoddy services and no vibe

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La Prima: Shoddy services and no vibe

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Monday, 22 February 2010 18:02

I was so excited about spicy Indian food that I decided to go to Khana Khazana along Ali Hassan Mwinyi road, opposite Victoria Petrol Station. Unfortunately, it was 4 p.m and the restaurant was closed. As I turned away dejected my eyes caught sight of the new apartment complex, La Prima.

Apart from apartments it boasts a steak house, a seafood restaurant and a drinking bistro. This was going to be better than I imagined – or so I thought.

The complex has a large enclosed parking area. When it is full, there is extra parking space outside. On the day my friend Polycarp and I went, the place was deserted. The restaurants looked dark and closed but the guard assured us that they were serving customers.

We waited a few minutes and when we didn’t see anyone to usher us into the restaurant, we decided to go and hunt for another. As we were leaving, one of the waiters hurried outside to meet us.

She was finishing buttoning up her long sleeved cream blouse with a dark brown line at the cuffs. She also had on a dark brown skirt (part of a uniform I suppose) and sandals. We asked her if the seafood restaurant was open and she responded that indeed it was. It seems that the restaurant experiences the lowest traffic at that time.

She ushered us into a dark area that looked like the bistro. She asked us to wait as she opened up the seafood restaurant. She showed us into a dark and stuffy room where she switched on the lights and the air conditioner. We had a pick of any of the 7 tables at the restaurant.

We chose one in the middle, near the AC. The light green tablecloth was stained as though it hadn’t touched water in a long time. The walls of the restaurant had dusty mirrors and the ceiling had stains. Along one wall there were broken drawers showing all and sundry the discarded papers within. There was no music or TV. Be well advised not to go there alone – you will be your own entertainment. If you do go alone, carry some work to do or a book to read.

We then asked for the menu. The choice was quite limited, nevertheless the descriptions of the dishes sounded mouth-watering. For starters there was a choice of crab au gratin (Sh8,500), chef’s salad comprising prawns, lettuce and croutons (Sh7,500) and soup (Sh8,000 - Sh9,500).

For the main meal, there was a choice of prawns in mild tomato and tamarind curry (Sh17,500), fried whole fish with chef’s salad and lemon sauce (Sh14,500), lobster a la Parla (Sh32,500) and baked red snapper.

All these are served with mashed potatoes, chips or rice. The most expensive dish was marinated Gambas which are marinated jumbo prawns with herbs. It went for a whopping Sh35,200.

For the meat lovers there is only one dish of grilled beef (Sh18,000) and one dish of roast chicken breast (Sh13,500). This very limited choice is understandable since it is a seafood restaurant. For the vegetarians there were two pasta dishes (each Sh13,500).

The desert menu had only 3 selections; Spices Panacotta trilogy with passion sauce (Sh6,500), Vanilla crème brulee tart with ice cream (Sh6,500) and fresh fruit salad (Sh5,000).

With these prices Polycarp and I waited to be spoilt rotten by being waited on hand and foot. But we were in for a nasty surprise – most of the items on the menu were not available. Can you believe that no item on the desert menu was available? With the limited range of the menu, this new information restricted our choices to less than half.

We decided to share a lobster soup for starters. It served 2 comfortably. It had shredded lobster bits, carrots and green pepper. It had no spices and was very plain; the fishy smell and taste making it very unappetising. We also ordered a litre bottle of water (Sh3,000) and a packet of one litre juice (Sh8,000). Also available was beer and soda.

For the main meal, Polycarp ordered the baked red snapper with rice and I ordered the fried whole fish with mashed potatoes. Trust me; you do not want to come here if all you are looking for is a quick lunch. We waited for 2 hours for our meal to arrive. Luckily by then we had already forgotten all about the plain lobster soup.

The baked red snapper turned out to be surprisingly good! It was served on a bed of vegetables and it was well done. The rice was, however, below average.

The fried fish was just average but the fish gravy served on a side bowl was heavenly. It was to perfection spiced with fresh ginger. The mashed potato was also quite good – smooth and buttery.

The portions were quite generous – after eating to our fill we could hardly stand up. We were glad that we hadn’t ordered the dessert. After we paid our bill, our waiter showed us out the front door. It had a well-decorated reception area – such a shame that we hadn’t used this door to get into the restaurant!

All in all, the service and the ambience were shoddy, the starter disappointing but the main course somewhat redeemed the reputation of this restaurant.

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