Shade Butchery

More like Shady Butchery. This post is without a doubt, dedicated to my dad.

Today Ben, Abi, and I went to lunch before going into work. We agreed yesterday that we should get some Nyama Choma soon, so today was the day. Nyama (nuh-yah-muh) Choma (cho-muh) is often called the national dish of Kenya, and stands for 'grilled meat'. It's like Kenyan BBQ. I was starved, and if you know me you know I love meat. Ben told us he knew a good place to get nyama choma and he hasn't led us wrong before (especially on food) so we trusted him. He led us to a place called Shade Butchery. Shade was a total dive. A shack behind another shack. The dingiest and sketchiest looking place I can imagine eating bbq. Well to be fair, the kitchen didn't even really exist so I can't say much on that note. After our fearless leader Ben ordered us some meat and a couple cokes we went to sit at a picnic table in a little cubby to the side of the kitchen. After we sat down a man brought out a couple cutting boards and set them on the table, then returned with about a quarter of a cow. I was shocked, but I could already feel my stomach growling. He set the hunk of meat down and pulled out a giant shank-like knife and proceeded to hack up the nyama choma in front of us. It was the most brutal display of food I've ever seen. When he was done he left us to it. There was no clean proper way to eat this. We ate like animals, and I tell you now; cow has never tasted so good.

When we could take small breaks between chowing down to talk we spoke of how dodgy the place was, and the potential diseases we could get from eating this meat. In the end the food was great, and we paid 400 Ksh ($5ish) for the whole lot of it. Shade Butchery is certainly on my recommendation list if you ever happen to be passing through Kenya.

For desert? None other than a 20 shilling ($0.30) bag of the best sugar cane the street vendors of Ngong can offer.

Meal = success