Suits cause service-breakdown at Amanzi

Elegant table setting at Amanzi Restaurant.

IT’S been a busy few weeks, what with the World Cup on one side, Wimbledon on the other, and preparations for Zimbabwe’s general elections to be held on 30 July appearing more frenzied with each passing day. Family members have been visiting from abroad, so in between watching TV and trying to predict the winners of all these exciting events, we’ve been eating out at our favourite restaurants, and visiting game parks and various beauty spots.

Amanzi Restaurant has always been popular with family and friends, so well before the cold snap that has sent Zimbos scurrying for their scarves and fleeces, I booked a sunny table for lunch on the verandah, facing the waterfall. At Amanzi you know there will always be a spotless white table cloth, linen napkins and gleaming cutlery and glasses. There are perhaps only three other restaurants in Harare where the cutlery isn’t wrapped in a flimsy paper napkin that flies off your knee at the slightest hint of a breeze.

Friendly wait-staff showed us to our table, took an order for drinks, and showed us Amanzi’s attractive new menu. Some items have been dropped, but regulars will still find their favourite dishes, such as 5 spice oxtail and chicken groundnut stew. Before we were able to give our orders, a large white bus pulled into the car park, dropping off a group of 20 or so grey-suited men and women. There was a frisson of excitement as they arrived – fresh-faced and well-groomed, they had the look of foreign visitors, Western cash-rich potential investors we hear so much about. They were also the cause of a service-breakdown, never before encountered at Amanzi.

Our waiters seemed to lose interest in our group of six, and scurried around bringing drinks, starters and main courses to the new-comers. We eventually managed to find someone to take our orders, but we were still sitting unfed and hungry, cracking feeble jokes, when the visitors put away their mobiles, pushed back their chairs and boarded the bus to leave for their next appointment.

At this point, a young woman, who may have been a manageress, came to apologise for the delay. ‘Just another five minutes’, she said optimistically.

The medium rare beef fillet, $30, when it arrived, was delicious. The sprouting broccoli and creamed spinach were tasty, and the French fries well made. If memory serves me, the portions were smaller than the last time I ate at Amanzi. The 5 spice oxtail, served with mashed potato, $24, looked like a child’s portion, similarly the chicken ground nut stew, $24. The youngest member of our party, however, was happy with her generous serving of chicken nuggets and chips, $12.

Amanzi is known to have an excellent wine list, but I contented myself with a glass of house wine from a bottle of full-bodied 1659 cabernet sauvignon, $4. Later this year I’ll be scrutinising and sampling wine lists, when looking at Harare restaurants offering the best menus and the best wine lists.

The sun was low in the horizon, but there was just time to drink a rather weak cappuccino coffee, $3, before leaving Amanzi in time to go home and switch on the TV to watch the match between Japan and Poland.    – A Matter of Taste with Charlotte Malakoff

Amanzi Restaurant

158 Enterprise Road

Chisipite

Tel: 0242 497768