Many of you may not know this but there has been an outbreak of cholera in many areas around Kenya. Food hawking has been banned and the death toll rises as the disease is “spread by poor hygiene”. I don’t tell you that to scare you, we do what is within our power to stay safe and healthy, but to say it’s something which is being talked about here in Nairobi (and those areas hardest hit).
So with the higher focus on this disease you would think restaurants in particular would be a little bit more conscientious of hygiene practices…..you would think. Chuck and I visited a mall in Nairobi and had lunch. They brought us a small dish of some sort of sauce and we weren’t sure what it was so I stuck my knife into it (I hadn’t used my knife) to taste it. It was olive oil with garlic and hot peppers, too hot for us so we knew we wouldn’t be using it. Our meal came and the waiter asked if we were using the sauce, nope, so he took it and proceeded to go to another table and set the sauce down for another customer to use. The only thing running through my mind at that time was “who else put their utensils into that sauce and had possibly double dipped into it!?”
I told Chuck “if I get sick you’ll know why!”
Educating people on sanitary practices should be one of a restaurants top priorities…instead we get sauces which others have possibly used, waiters literally picking off the toppings from our pizza with bare hands and serving it to us (we watched them do it) and heaven knows how many people picking their noses/shaking hands/tossing rubbish then handling the customers food.
Ok, rant over and to end on a good note, the food was actually delicious.