Restaurant: Zam-Sare Restaurant
Burundi is a small country in central Africa, which borders Tanzania, Rwanda and Congo.
80% of the land in Burundi is used for agriculture meaning they can grow lots of fruit and veg like matooke, cassava, sweet potato, plantain and more. Some families have their own cattle as Burundians are very big on homemade food. Most of the population, however don't and only have enough money to eat goat or sheep (these are the only available meats) very rarely.
As Burundians are known for homemade cooking it was very difficult to find a restaurant in London serving their cuisine. After desperately searching the web we found out that there wasn't one. However, the food in Burundi is largely influenced by it's near by countries, an example being Uganda. So we ended up going to an Ugandan, serving lots of the same food that they eat in Burundi.
Our orders:
Mains: Matooke - Very savoury tasting, mashed green bananas.
Cassava - A long, whitish starch that grows on a plant.
Sweet Potato - Not the orange sweet potato that we normally think of. This sweet potato is white and tastes slightly more savoury.
Plantain - more savoury version of a banana
Goat Curry
Goat Stew
Rating ☆☆.5
This wasn’t a bad meal in any way, it felt very homemade, but the atmosphere and location weren’t amazing; we were the only people in the restaurant, although everything looked well cared for. The owner was lovely and very helpful. She prepared a typical Burundian meal and also told us that she was very proud to be Ugandan.
Best dishes: Goat Stew, Matooke
Could have been better: I don't think that any dish was bad. Some tastes like the Cassava we didn't like very much but is just because we're not used to it.
In this meal we tasted many things we hadn't even heard of before and ended up liking most of it. Definitely give Burundian a try, you never know, it may be your favourite.
