Thai food emphasises freshness

Parking in Harare is fraught — and with the City seemingly on a fundraising drive, expensive! The onus is on the motorist to hunt down the Easy Park marshalls to make sure your car is ticketed although they are not always apparent — even in their high visibility vests. And it doesn’t matter that your ten minute errand might entail a further 10 to 15 minutes looking for the attendant. If you fail to find him or her — punishment is clamping — which costs US$57 and extra time stomping to and from Rowan Martin to pay.
Clamping doesn’t seem to apply to vehicles parked illegally or blocking traffic.  Cars clutter Samora Machel three abreast totally cutting off the left-hand lane — but they remain unclamped. On my way into town on my clamped morning I had to detour dangerously to avoid a 4×4 stopped dead in Nelson Mandela, hazards flashing.  Some areas are no go for Easy Park with street parkers totally in control. They offer cheaper rates and are certainly always visible when you park!
Easy Park goes for easy pickings. It’s not about congestion and easing traffic flow — it’s about revenue collection. The day I was caught there were swathes of unoccupied parking spaces outside the Financial Gazette offices and no attendants visible. Previously parking marshalls have told me that if they are not around when you park they will ticket your car and you must find them and pay when you leave. Not on this day. Prison wardress clamper refused to engage with us at all.  Young attendant, miraculously appearing too late, called me a liar for daring to say she hadn’t been around when I parked. Later I saw her drifting off up the Kopje, talking on her mobile, oblivious to any parkers at her post. No redress and kopje was the cash cow that day with several cars clamped.
Good reason to avoid the City — so chose Msasa for lunch — with on site parking and no clampers in sight! Sabai Thai has recently opened next to Doon Estate in the vacated premises of Chang Thai (now moved to Gunhill). Sabai means comfortable and relaxed and it was certainly relaxed though décor still a bit sparse for luxury. Thai food emphasizes freshness and a complex balance of flavours with strong aromatic components and a spicy edge. Both our Thai restaurants offer almost identical menus — including strangely, some Western options (burgers, chicken, chips etc) but the dishes do deliver substantial flavour.
We started with sesame prawns (US$8) with a sweet chillie sauce. Sauce was store bought and I thought overly sweet – could have done with something homemade and hotter. But sesame batter coating crunchy prawns was very good. Other starters (between US$6 and US$8) include chicken nuggets, spring rolls, tempura veg and satay chicken.
One can choose from a wide selection of salads, stir fries, punchy thai curries, rice and noodles.  Thai salads are fabulous combinations of meat, vegetables, noodles and flavourings (lemon grass, fish sauce, chillie, herbs). I chose Yum Wum Sen — a sour and spicy minced chicken salad with glass noodles. Packed with flavour it was chillie hot, as asked for, and a lovely combination of chicken and fresh crunchy vegetables. My companion had beef and basil stir fry — US$14. Possible to eat a couple of courses for under US$20 unless you go for duck specialities — all US$22.  Local ducks are just pricy!
Plan to go back in the cooler season for wonderful spicy Thai soups — and to try  dishes with such evocative names as crying tiger salad, jungle prawn soup and angry                                                                           duck!
g.jeke@yahoo.com