Forget Salads - Think Brazilian Churrasco Meat Experience!

I lunch with Meg Vora for the best part of the working week and Meg doesn’t eat meat. In the twilight of 2017, I find it very hard to believe, grasp and comprehend that there are people out there who don’t eat meat. For lunch, Meg makes do with an Indian vegetarian meal except, it doesn’t look like a meal, but some sort of Luzira prison slop which are left overs from days before and which is served on a metallic plate - the ones with the little small cubicles. Meg not eating meat so I found out, has nothing to do with him being Hindi or anything to do with his religious beliefs but, and wait for it - because he’s not ‘keen’ on it. Jeez Meg, are you for real?

Meg And His Veggie Burger

How can he not be keen on meat? In fact, how can anybody not be keen on meat? How can them people - vegetarians that is, be allowed to go onto social media and post pictures of themselves looking bored and dejected over a bowl of bland lettuce and broccoli? And in the picture of Meg above, he hardly looks thrilled about his veggie burger - doesn't he? In my immediate and greater family, thankfully we are all avid meat eaters save for two of my nieces and a cousin -  Tamara, Yvonne and Sara. Hmm, I wonder what went wrong them.

Getting back, last week, Christmas came early when two invitations landed - not to go and drink free beer as I had hoped, but something even better - to go to a meat fest and eat as much meat as possible. Obviously, I didn’t invite Meg along.

Come Thursday and after skipping breakfast and lunch, I found myself at the swanky new restaurant, La Cabana at Speke Apartments on Wampewo Avenue to indulge in whats called the Brazilian Churrasco Meat Experience and from the moment I walked in, the air was consuming if not, arresting. It smelt meat. It smelt meat that had slowly been basking over on the spit for hours on end.

A Grand Meat Fest At La Cabana, Speke Apartments

But wait up. At the self-service counter, there was something else - a salad bar! But what does salad have to do with meat? Anyway, after seeking permission from Maitre D’Hotel, I was in the kitchen and at the source and to be honest, it was a dream come true and a sight that two weeks later is firmly etched in my head. Rack upon rack of succulent salt pork cubes, lamb leg, top sirloin steak – the list is endless. I was like a 5-year-old boy who had just gotten his first Lego set.

At my table, it was comforting to find that there were other serious like-minded men like James Odomel who live and dream meat 24/7 as much as I do. As we dined on the lamb leg, we had an in-depth discussion about why Ugandans don’t eat lamb, why it’s the most luscious meat out there and how suicidal we would be if there was a meat scarcity. On the next table, Salad Eater showed his his disgust and gawped at us. His listening to our conversation, it must have been as complex for him to grasp as it is for me to grasp what 'quantum' means in quantum physics.

Real Men Like James Odomel Eat Meat And Nothing Else

Two days later, we were off to Gaucho Grill on Entebbe Road. The usual suspects – J. Bagaire, Kayos K, Julio M, Oscar M and Vinta N flushed me, so it was down to Bayego K, P. Lukwago and I to represent. But wait. The brief I gave them, was explicitly clear – ‘we were going to eat meat, and lots of it!’ To my utter dismay, when we got there what did they go and do? They made a beeline for the salad bar. Why would anybody drive from Kampala, fighting through all that traffic to Bwebajja to go and eat salads?!? Does that not defy rational thinking? It so does!

Paulo Lukwago At Graucho Grill, Bwebajja

Of course, I had no contract with the salad bar and settled back for the meat. Like had happened at La Cabana, I had half expected Gaucho Server to dump the whole leg of lamb onto my plate and scuttle away but as he politely informed me, “there are other guests who also need to eat…” I let him be. When he returned with the pork, I harangued him into serving me more than he should have. While all this was going on, Bayego and Lukwago were still on salads and pretending to have a blast. Hmm.

And Finally, Bayego Went Carnivorous - With Some Cajoling... 

Like was said at the start, I like my meat – but not byenda (offals) and if a day passes and I have not eaten meat, I become agitated. But it’s really a sad and mortifying tale that there are people who don’t eat meat and who will never know what an orgasm it is, to sit at La Cabana and Gaucho Grill surrounded by nothing but meat! 

But let's try and finish this tale on a 'positive note'. I honestly feel NO sympathy for them. 

Pictures: Meg Vora, La Cabana, Gaucho Grill