The Fish Market (F.A. Post for Week 7)

This might be the definition of food heaven on Earth.  Every night in the Fordhani Gardens, tens of vendors set up tables, grills, and presses for 5-6 hours of food, drink, and fun.  I have a feeling that it’s mostly done for tourists, but I don’t care; I’m amazed!  Each fisherman table is covered with skewers of kingfish, tuna, barracuda, lobster, squid, octopus, prawns, shrimp, mussels, scallops, beef, and chicken.  Then there was chipati, coconut naan, regular naan, massive lobster claws, whole octopus tentacles, potato cakes, fish cakes, sambusas, fried plantain, ALL on a 6’ X 2’ table, and all mostly under 5,000Tsh (~$3.33) except for the lobster claws.  You point to all the different skewers you want, they load it onto a white Dixie plate and then take it to the grill.  When cooked, they load it back onto the plate with a backup plate and cover it in this chili sauce that although it practically makes you cry, it has the perfect sweet taste to compliment the seafood.  Our first vendor was a man named Mr. Polite, and boy was he!  My friends made fun of me for dwelling on this, but after two hours of eating, I went back to Mr. Polite for one last lobster skewer as he was packing up.  With only two skewers left, he laughed at my love for the lobster and gave me the last two for the price of one! 

Mr. Polite's Fish Stand

In between the fisherman tables, there are stands with sugar cane juice flanked by big mechanical presses that siphon the juice squeezed from the sugar cane into a basin that is then emptied into a bowl and sold.  It’s fascinating the preciseness of the way the men fold the cane over and over to get all available juice out of each stalk.  Finally, there is Zanzibar pizza.  Much like a crepe, it’s thin dough fried but with toppings cooked into the dough.  My first attempt was with a chicken pizza and unfortunately I saw the massive amount of mayo that they spread on it, so although good, it wasn’t my favorite. But THEN I had the mango pizza and it was divine: just the right amount of sweet but with light dough that reminds me of a good ol’ peach cobbler.  Needless to say, we went back the next night and although I did not spend too much time at Mr. Polite’s table, I found a guy with comparable food who even had fresh lemon juice.  Needless to say, food coma ensued.