EATING OUT IN RWANDA

When we travel, eating at restaurants is usually one of our favorite things to experience.  It's a great chance to check out local flavors and get unique atmospheres, as well as the obvious - fill our bellies with tasty food.  With a party of 12 including 8 children, we are not the easiest group to accommodate. 😳🙈 When you add to that the differences in culture and slight language barrier, we have had a very wide range of experiences eating out here in Rwanda.

For one of our first dinners out, we hit up a place that I knew would be good from my last trip to Rwanda: Heaven.



I had forgotten that it has a playground which proved the perfect place for our restless crew to wait.

It also overlooks the city, which provided lovely sunset views on this particular evening.

The food was tasty, and though dinner took a while, we all enjoyed what we ordered and had a mostly pleasant evening.  This was at the end of our first full day in country, so we had some tired kiddos, though they enjoyed a rousing round of "cheers!" after getting their drinks.




During the day that we visited Rubavu to meet Lilian and Diane, our sponsored girls, we took a midday break to go eat lunch.  I had no expectations, so when we drove up to this beautiful hillside spot with lake views and another playground, I was pretty delighted with our surroundings.

Earlier in the morning, our guide had called ahead to order our food, so it was mostly ready when we got there.

One of our children had a pretty epic meltdown that included us having to chase them around the property while others watched.  🙈🤣 We've really asked a lot of our kids on this trip, but it has been tricky to know the best times to discipline well and also show grace since they've been sleep deprived and gone literally from border to border of Rwanda.  #doingourbest

At the end of this day, John actually had some local food picked up street side with one of our guides.

Another memorable dining experience was at Monaco Cafe in Kigali.  It was recommended to us because of the massive play land and extensive menu.  Our kids were truly delighted to be dropped off to play for over an hour while we adults were truly delighted to sit at a table where we could sort of see them but not hear them.  🙌🏻 🙌🏻 🙌🏻

(When was the last time you saw a ball pit?!? Just as fun as when we were kids. We'll just not think about the germs.)

(Giant merry-go-round teddy bear.)

We were very thankful for the play land, because this dinner ended up taking a while, and though we tried to be clear when we ordered, we ended up not getting what we thought we were getting.  Here are the guys trying to make the food presentable to the picky children before they appeared at the table. Let's just say the hot dogs resembled American hot dogs only slightly, and there was some miscommunication when I tried to order off-menu.

It should also be noted that Adam ordered a full chicken.  We really didn't know what that would entail, but he was hungry, so he bumped it up from half to full as the other adults egged him on.  After most of us had finished eating, they finally brought his chicken which had apparently just finished cooking.  It was all there. 😂

Probably the hardest meal was at Akagera Game Lodge.  Our Rwandan friends had joined us, bringing our total head count to 18, 6 adults and 12 children.  There was really no containing them at the table, and this dinner ended up being 5 slow courses.  We made it through, and it was great to spend time with friends, but I was very glad to conclude that evening.  Breakfast was a buffet and a much better more peaceful experience!

Today was our last full day here in Rwanda, and we had one of our favorite dining experiences eating lunch at J. Lynn's.  Finding another playground was a huge bonus, and the food was all so fresh and so to our tastes, which was nice at this point in the trip.  It was delivered much more quickly than we've been accustomed to expecting, which was another gift - though it was a beautiful spot to wait with cold drinks in hand.

(Someone liked their Nutella bagel.)

This trip has turned out to be everything we had hoped for and more.  We are looking forward to beginning our trip home tomorrow night, but we will be sad to leave behind this beautiful country!