Zafari RestaurantZafari restaurant
<Update>This seems to have sadly fallen to the economic times and closed down. I don't think it is going refurbishment but if it reopens I will update this. </Update>
18 Ashley Road, Boscombe, Bournemouth BH6 5AA - Tel: 01202 393 164
I had an e-mail from a Paul Garratt, who I guess is the owner, suggesting that I visit Bournemouth's only restaurant serving African food such as crocodile, biltong, wildebeest and springbok.
It was a Friday night that me, Angela and my brother went around 8.45pm. There was only one other table there but that was a party of 8.
We opened the menu and it all looked very interesting.
I opted for the Malagasy salad which is pineapple, coconut, with chilli and salad leaves. I don't know what it was and I am sure it was more me than the meal itself, but my first mouthful took me back to when I was 15 years old and smoking John Player Specials. My taste buds must have been playing tricks as I love all those ingredients. I did just have a full week of eating and drinking though as part of our 10th anniversary weekend.
Angela and Ken had the crocodile with peanut sauce and the smoked chicken and mango salad respectively. The crocodile, they say tastes like chicken, looked slightly tough but when eating a piece it was actually quite tender. The smoked chicken also tasted nice and had large slices of mango all over it. I thought it was a main course when it came out.
For the main courses we decided to try something that we don't normally see on the menu so we skipped the Tuna and normal steaks and chose Impala, Kudu and Nile Perch.
The Impala looked dark on the outside and they cooked it medium-rare so when I cut into it it was a very deep red, just like a rare seared tuna. I though hmmm, this will be interesting. After my first mouthful, I was converted. It was delicious. It was like eating tuna sashimi as it was very, very tender. There was no fat or gristle. I shouldn't have went for the pepper sauce and should have chose the meat jus instead, as the pepper sauce detracted from the quality of the steak.
The Kudu was like a normal rump steak and was nice. The Nile Perch was a bit like monkfish although Angela didn't finish it all. We even ate all the plain boiled rice as that was light and fluffy like we make at home, as in some places it can be slight hard and dry or sins of all sins, be very wet and just been sieved!
Overall it is definitely worth trying. Although there may be wildebeest and impala on the menu the food is more accessible than you think.
Go on, give it a try and tell your friends you have tasted crocodile.
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Visiting this place prompted me to get some Ostrich steaks from the butchers in Westbourne. Very tender and we gave a piece to everyone to try and they all thought it was fillet steak. Even after we kept on telling them it was ostrich they wouldn't believe us.
I did make a faux par by cooking it on a freshly lit disposable BBQ. You could taste the fuel that they use to impregnate the coals with. I should have cooked a few sausages on it first to clear the way.
