Best Dishes of 2013

Not to miss out on the end-of-year listacles, a look back at my most memorable dishes from this year.  Note these are all restaurant creations.  If I had to include some of the wonderful home cooked meals I’ve been served and cooked myself, it would be a much longer list as the year was also full of great home cooking.  In no particular order….

17 dishes at Hotel the Village: On my second visit to Sri Lanka I continued to be impressed with the vast array of cooking techniques and flavor combinations that could be presented in a single meal.  However, nowhere have I seen more diverse, complex, vegetable-driven preparations than at Hotel The Village restaurant in Girithali, Sri Lanka.  We were awestruck by the bounty when we weren’t busy eating from the 15 different bowls of curried vegetables, dal, pork, lake fish, and sambal presented with two different kinds of rice. With juice, this feast came to barely USD$10 per person.

Cacio e Pepe at Lupa:  Mario Batali’s Lupa is no secret, and for anyone who has eaten there, neither is the Cacio e Pepe.  While it may have taken me a while to get on board with this program, I made up for it plenty going back four times this year.  When you find a dish that is “the best”, it is hard to keep away when the craving strikes for the perfect cheese and black pepper slicked pasta.

Rabbit in Salt Bowl with Courgettes at Duck Soup: Since stumbling upon this restaurant suggestion on a London food blog a few summers back, this has quickly become a go-to restaurant for John and me.  The small plates change constantly and we have been consistently impressed with their range. This Labor Day weekend it was a braised rabbit dish with baby courgettes served in a Himalayan salt bowl that captured my taste buds’ memory and insured that as long as Duck Soup is open, we will keep coming back.

Ddukbokki at Hanjan:  I love Korean, in no small way because I’m obsessed with pickled food and kimchi is perhaps the pinnacle of pickling technique.  Hanjan, a modern Korean newcomer to the Flatiron district makes kimchi all right, and it is a must every time I eat there.  Along with the kimchi, the Pork Fat “Ddukbokki” is now on my “must order” list.  Chewy rice cakes and briny sliced fish cakes mingle in a slick of spicy pork fat.  There is nothing quite like it.

Lamb Neck at Calliope:  I should be embarrassed how often I eat lunch at Calliope.  I can’t help it.  Eric Korsh and Ginevra Iverson might be making classic (and updated classic) French food better than the French in this Francophile city.  But if you go once, go for dinner, as that is where their food truly shines.  There is always a game bird on the menu, and it is always delicious.  Some nights I have been enchanted by specials such as a deconstructed cassoulet made with confit veal breast.  But make sure someone at your table orders the hot and sour braised lamb neck, served off the bone with pillow-light mascarpone agnolotti.  That is the stuff dreams are made of.  

Ceviche at El Camello Jr.: When two singing taxi drivers tell you that this is their go-to place for fish whenever they shuttle tourists the hour and a half drive from the Cancun airport to Tulum, you know the food has got to be good.  El Camello Jr. is owned by fisherman and attached to a seafood market.  The fish is so fresh you can watch the cooks cleaning the catch from an open window.  The “chico” fish ceviche was so not-small and so delicious that could have been a meal for two on its own, with a side of excellent chips and a cerveza, of course.

Adobada at Los Tacos No. 1: Los Tacos No. 1 changed my life.  This is not hyperbole.  As a native Californian, homesickness to me tastes like tacos.  I mean real tacos.  Not the fancy versions popping up all over New York from star chefs trying to reinvent the wheel.  I mean real, honest, homemade tortilla, fresh salsa, meat-on-a-spit tacos.  Then three entrepreneurs schooled in Tijuana-style tacos brought Los Tacos No. 1 to Chelsea Market, practically at my doorstep.  Now when I get the craving, a taste of home (washed down with an ice cold Jamaica) is only a hop, skip, and jump away.

Tri-color Pappardelle with Matsutake Mushrooms at Piora: I despise the word “fusion”, but even then, I have been hard pressed to come up with a word to summarize the style at West Village newcomer Piora.  So I won’t.  It is enough to know the food is wonderful without trying to hard (even if the service does try a bit too hard on occasion).  A special one night last fall of tri-color homemade pappardelle with Matsutake mushrooms, a varietal prized in Japan, seemed a classic mash-up of Asian and Italian sensibilities.  Whatever you want to call the cuisine at Piora, all you need to know is that it is delicious.

Green Curry ramen at Bassanova: Who can chose a best ramen in New York City?  We are spoiled for choice.  And though everyone seems to have a personal favorite for the classic variety (mine is Hide-Chan’s spicy ramen) we are just now seeing the innovation that has been happening in Japan migrate to our shores.  A great early example is the fabled Green Curry Ramen from Bassanova, originally of Japan and now in New York’s Chinatown.  Push the weirdly placed mesclun greens to the side and dip your chopsticks into the beautiful, oversized bowl to fish out springy noodles bathing in a rich, fragrant green curry.  It will make you wonder why no one on this side of the Pacific had thought of that already.

Afternoon Snack at Hasaki: The name “Afternoon Snack” was clearly designed to make one laugh.  This is “snack” fit for a giant, or perhaps an Olympic sprinter.  But for us mere mortals who get hungry at lunch time, this spread is a sampler of just about everything wonderful this authentic East Village Japanese restaurant serves: green salad, red miso soup, tempura vegetables and shrimp, grilled miso salmon, two seaweed salads, and the chef’s sushi and roll selection of the day.  At $18, it might just be the best value “snack” in New York City.

Wishing you food adventures and happy eating in 2014!

Note:  In my capacity as a wine salesperson I do business with Piora, Hanjan, and Calliope.  However, I paid for all food mentioned here and would have happily eaten at any of these restaurants regardless of my business relationship.

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

Why the Men Can Have Their Grill

Smoked Sausage and Pork Shoulder

It is still at least somewhat true that the grill is a man’s domain.  Frankly, if the men were always grilling like my brother and his friends did a few weeks back on a camping trip, I’d be perfectly okay never coming near a pile of hot coals. 

Over a weekend in Virginian Appalachia not once did I pick up so much as a pair of tongs to help with the cooking.  It was not for lack of offering.  Under normal circumstances I might have been itching to throw on an apron, but once the boys fired up the grill and the food started coming out, I was more than happy to sit back with the ladies and enjoy the spoils of their culinary adventure. 

Cabin in Virginia

I was a fool if I ever doubted the high epicurean standards of my brother’s crew. One of his friends went so far as to buy a smoker just to take the grill-out from standard to extraordinary. Friday night the R2-D2 looking contraption was put to the test with a pile of liberally seasoned chicken legs and breasts.  Even veggies found their way into the top layer of smoke- eggplant, onions, and peppers were cooked until soft and fragrant but still structured.  Both the leftover chicken and veg would form the filling for my post-hike sandwich the next day along with a liberal spread of roasted eggplant dip (yes, the boys brought that too).

Smoked pork shoulder

Chicken seasoned, ready for the smoker

The grand finale was a Saturday night barbecue to put all car camping cookouts to shame.  While playing dominoes, a snack of smoked and peppered wild boar loin appeared to whet our appetite.  This was followed about a half hour later by a plate piled high with smoked sweet Italian and spicy Andouille sausage.  Corn on the cob arrived next, still in their jackets and pleasantly charred.  A cast iron pot of potatoes mixed with peppers and onions, and was given a gentle bath of beer then allowed to bubble until the potatoes were tender.  Finally, buried beneath the sausage and wild boar on the bottom of R2-D2 a luscious pork shoulder had spent hours in a smoke sauna.  The result was pork so meltingly tender it needed nothing more than a fork to eat.

It may be still be a man’s world in a few too many ways, but if the men are cooking like they were the other weekend while the women folk are relaxing, that’s a world I am more than happy to live in.  At least for a weekend.

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

A Very London Summer: Two Worth the Trip

Pappardelle with Duck Ragu at Ducksoup

The Queen’s Jubilee has come and gone.  The Olympics are around the corner.  And today Wimbledon, arguably the greatest tennis tournament of the year, got off to roaring start complete with the usual ladies in big hats nibbling on strawberries and cream at Center Court.  It’s turning into a very London summer indeed.

In the spirit of public interest for those of you crossing the pond in the coming months, I’ve recently made the journey myself and returned with a couple new restaurants to add to the “must eat” list.

Sea Trout Carpaccio with Fennel Salad

Last summer I spent a bit of time in Soho checking out the delicious small plates at no-reservations Polpo, the intoxicating lamb curry at CâyTre, and the toothsome udon noodles at Koya.  I found myself back in Soho this year (same charming beau in tow) this time to checkout the fantastically named winebar-cum-restaurant Ducksoup. 

Walking up to the restaurant on a balmy Saturday night, English chaps spilled out the doors of the pubs and onto the streets, a sure sign that a wait was ahead for us given Ducksoup’s no reservation policy for parties of two.  It was a pleasant surprise then to find several open seats at the 9pm hour, particularly given that the narrow room can seat no more than about twenty people at a time.

We started out strong with a plate of wild sea trout carpaccio the color of ruby red grapefruit served along side a crisp fennel salad.  Two perfect lamb chops followed, redolent of oregano.  The side of bread was worth the £2 extra as every last drop of the lamb juice had to be slurped up.  We were happily encouraged to a save a bit of bread for the quail course, as the tiny bird arrived roasted in a bath of white wine with fresh bay leaves, lemon, and olives.  The pasta of the night, a homemade pappardelle with yes, duck ragu, was better than a pasta we had the previous night at a far fancier restaurant down the road in Mayfair.

Dining Room at Ducksoup

The wine list was a bit hit and miss and prices were out of synch with the otherwise affordable menu.  But we made due, sampling a few and sharing before settling on a light red Burgundy, a perfectly quaffable beverage for pairing up with the game meats or sipping by itself, staring out the open window at the jolly pub-goers across the way.

Upon leaving dinner in Chelsea the following night, I shook my head and said to John, “I’m not sure how they stay in business feeding people like that.”  Whether I was contemplating the slabs of foie gras that came tucked between the breast and leg of my wood pigeon, or the fried balls of bone marrow that garnished John’s blade fillet of beef, or the complex sauces that came with each of our dishes of the sort that require a diligent, exclusive saucier- Medlar had all the elements of high-end French dining utilizing mostly local ingredients at a price so low as to be dumbfounding. 

English Asparagus and Goats' Curd

I wanted to throw money at them!  Here!  Take it!  We had been fed so well, served with such genuine care, I simply could not get over that all of that could be had for only £30 on a Sunday night (£39.50 Monday-Saturday dinner, £30 weekend lunch, £26.50 weekday lunch).

Wood Pigeon with Foie Gras

Many prix fixe restaurants limit choices and then charge additional fees to recoup the cost of expensive ingredients on certain menu items.  Not at Medlar.  It is one price fits all.  For that, on a recent Sunday night you could get a choice of seven different appetizers like English asparagus with goats curd, pea mousse, black olive, and pickled Japanese mushrooms, or one extra large raviolo swimming in a sauce of melted leeks and seafood bisque.  Of course, one could choose to eat lighter, but when foie gras, filet, game birds, and bone marrow are in such expert hands, why hold back?

Chocolate Delice with Milk Ice Cream

Desserts were simple and nice though nothing much to remember.  Perhaps the passion fruit sorbet with coconut tuille would have shined at another restaurant but even my brick of rich chocolate delice with milk ice cream seemed a tad banal in comparison to the previous courses.

I am told that the end of King’s Road where Medlar resides is the bad part of the street, well beyond Chelsea’s hipper restaurants.  I can imagine once word of Medlar spreads that will not remain the situation for long.  Even in merry old England, less than two and a half miles from Buckingham Palace, there are still trails to blaze.

Note: Many thanks to LondonEater.com for always pointing me toward some new and interesting eats in London- a great resource for anyone living in or traveling to London.

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

Best Bites of 2011- Restaurant Edition

Spicy Cumin Lamb Noodles in Soup from Xi'an Famous Foods

It was a good year for lamb.  And spice.  Whether eating cross-legged at a street vendor in Indonesia, using newspaper as a plate in Sri Lanka, or sampling the latest creation from celebrity chef Jose Andres in Las Vegas, it was a year full of memorable bites.

In no particular order.... 

Head on prawns, a la plancha, anchovy butter, tarragon. The Bristol, Chicago. 

It had been about eight years since my last time in Chicago.  January in Chicago lived up to my weather expectations (bone rattling cold) and food (fantastic).  Even after a mind-blowing meal the night before at 16 filled with every high end food imaginable- truffles, caviar, Waygu beef- it was the shrimp at The Bristol that left the biggest impression of the trip.  Packed with deep flavor from the fatty head and the prawns came dripping in luscious herbed anchovy butter.  I licked my fingers.

Spaghittusu cun Allu Ollu e Bottariga.  La Ciccia, San Francisco. 

The meal that started it all- my obsession with Sardinian food that is.  Trying to break out of our Cali-Italian dining rut in San Francisco, I booked a table at this specifically Sardinian restaurant in Noe Valley for my boyfriend’s birthday.  The restaurant and the cuisine excel in creating complex flavors with simple ingredients.  Spaghetti with spicy oil and bottarga, or mullet roe, topped with golden breadcrumbs tattooed my tastebuds with the memory of truly excellent regional Italian cuisine.
On my Sardinian obsession: All Roads Lead to Sardinia

Duck Tongue Tacos. China Poblano, Las Vegas.

I’ll admit I was highly skeptical of this Chinese-Meets-Mexican concept at the new Cosmopolitan Hotel.  I should not have doubted Jose Andres.  His team deftly managed hand made dumplings in one corner while turning out hand pressed tortillas in another.  Sometimes the two cuisines met in the middle as with the bold flavors of the duck tongue tacos.
For the story on my meal at China Poblano, click here: From China to Mexico By Way of Las Vegas

Egg Hopper with Sambal. Night Market Stall in Kataragama, Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka had already been wowing me for days with mouth numbing curries, melting dal, fresh fish, and endless preparations of vegetables.  But I was after a taste of the legendary egg hopper, a bowl shaped pancake made of fermented batter filled with a scrambled egg and spicy sambal chili paste.  At a festival in Kataragama, a woman with a huge smile dished up her specialty and wrapped it in newspaper for us to eat on the drive home.  Easily one of the simplest and most memorable bites and meals of my year.
On Hoppers and Curry Rice: To Create Trust First Eat the Fire

Oryx, Springbok, Kudu.  Namibia.

It is too hard to choose just one of these bites.  Therefore this is a tie between all the wild game we ate in Namibia.  At Joe’s in Windhoek.  Oase Guesthouse in Kamanjab.  Erich’s in Swakopmund.  And Sossusvlei Lodge in Sesriem.
More on wild meat in Namibia: The Pride of Namibia

Polenta with bacon lardon, Bagnes cheese, and tomato sauce.  Croix de Coeur, Verbier, Switzerland.

No one told me about how good the food can be in Switzerland- the wine, the chanterelles, and Oh My, the cheese.  Also, I’m not sure I really grasped just how organized the trail system is in the Alps with convenient rest stops for food and drink seemingly every few miles.  At the end of a 9-mile trail run we celebrated with mediocre pasta and an over-the-top delicious plate of polenta.  It came out sizzling in a cast iron pan, topped with a chunky marina sauce, melted cheese from the valley below and thick slices of bacon lardon.  It may have been August but that is a wintry comfort food I would eat any time of year. 

Spicy Cumin Lamb Noodles. (Pictured above)  Xi’an Famous Foods, New York, New York.

I have fond memories of a solo trip to China many years ago, particularly of the food I ate in the Northern city of Xi’an where the spices of the East meet the hearty hand cut wheat noodles of China.  Xi’an Famous Foods does justice to the city for which it is named.  A sinus clearing, steaming bowl of spicy cumin lamb noodles brought back a flood of memories with every slurp.

Mie Goreng with Lamb.  Borobudur, Indonesia.

We escaped our plush hotel one night and its unadventurous tourist food for real local experience.  Sitting cross-legged on plastic mats, the hotel’s restaurant manager had brought us to his personal favorite restaurant in town normally patronized only by locals.  He ordered for us- plates of satay and mie goreng were washed down with warm beer from the convenience store next door.  The spice from the mie goreng- thin rice noodles stir fried with lamb- was so potent that we coughed and our eyes watered even from several meters away from the wok at the street side stall.  Our eyes watered still, this time with happiness, as we asked our guide to order seconds. More on Indonesian street food eating: Eating the Street and the Street Bites Back

Salsa. El Banco, Puerto Vallarta.

It is hard to choose a favorite part of this spectacular retreat on the Mexican coast far away from the crowds of Puerta Vallarta.  If I had to choose one thing, it might be the salsa whipped up daily by the villa’s chef.  We managed to overcome my lack of Spanish and her lack of English when she taught me how to make this salsa of blackened chilies simply by watching her work.  I now can have a little taste of Mexico whenever I get the urge.
Find the recipe for Olinka's Salsa Here: For Heat Loving Gringos

Herbs, Flowers, Foraged Greens, Curds and Whey. Forage, Salt Lake City, Utah.

“Forage” was certainly a buzzword of 2011 in the world of food, but this restaurant was enough ahead of the trend to actually name this small, sleek establishment after one of the methods through which these young chef/owners procure their food.  A simple salad of herbs and flowers from their backyard greenhouse and foraged greens from a nearby park was topped with milky whey and salty curds.  It sounded strange, looked beautiful, and tasted hauntingly of the land from which the dish came.
For a detailed account of my meal at Forage, click here: And the Winner Is...

Lasagna. Bianca, New York, New York.

Not new for me, the lasagna at Bianca was special precisely because it is an old familiar friend.  Our first night moving into our new apartment in New York after living in California for over five years, it was to Bianca we went to celebrate with paper thin sheets of pasta layered with béchamel and meat sauce- possibly the best lasagna anywhere in the world.

Stay tuned for the best of my year in cooking.  

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

Kabeljou, Oryx, Chicken- The Pride of Namibia

“The fish came fresh of the boats this morning.” “The meat is all from our family farm.” “This bag of chicken will feed our family of fourteen.” Two weeks in Namibia proved to me that in a country with so much potential, one of its biggest assets is the pride of its people.

August in Namibia is the high season, perhaps not the best time of year to be winging a road trip in Africa. John and I had fantasized about our 4-wheel drive rental car with rooftop pop-up tent. We naively thought we could call around dealers on our first day, playing them off each other to find the best deal. Instead we found that tour operators and European independent travelers armed with advance reservations beat us to every 4x4 in Windhoek.

We happened upon what was perhaps the last available rental car in all of Namibia, a gold Corolla. We slapped down a credit card and prayed she would survive the dirt roads of this vast, open country.

The pre-planning tourists followed us everywhere, falling out of tour buses in front of us at service stations, caravans of white pickup trucks pulling into the ticket window of park entrances minutes before we did. We were not to be deterred. What we had going for us that all these supposedly smart planners lacked was the element of spontaneity. And it was just that sense of adventure, of not always knowing what city we would sleep in on a given night, that led to some of our most memorable encounters with the local people, not to mention their food.

Kamanjab is not much more than a blip on a map of Namibia. Two groceries, one petrol station, and one car repair shop pretty much sums up the entire town. Most tourists, don’t stop in this town for much more than lunch at Oase Guesthouse on their way to the bigger attraction, Etosha National Park.

We came the opposite direction, away from Etosha. Not quite sure of our destination we were looking for a place to rest our head for the night. The first sight of the dusty town is not terribly welcoming. The plains had recently given way to picturesque rolling hills but if one was looking for nightlife, curio shops, and maybe a German Bakkerie, this was not the place.

However, on deciding to stay, Oase lived up to its promising name. The guesthouse, a former market and then government headquarters, had a foliage filled courtyard with walls painted a soothing shade of green and a few hammocks perfect for afternoon reading. Owners Eban and Marianne along with their charming manager, oversee the small guesthouse with the warmth of long lost relatives.

We liked it so much we stayed on for a second night. Only later did we find out that they had been booked the second night, but chose to turn away an afternoon reservation so we could stay with them a second day. How quickly we became like family.

Both nights we feasted on oryx, a type of antelope with a deep venison taste. As we raved about oryx T-bone on night one and oryx fillet on night two, Evan proudly explained that all the meat, including the oryx, came from their farm. This was a family operation down to the provenance of the menu items.

Leaving our dusty, desert oasis in Kamanjab, we headed southwest towards a campground in petroglyph filled Twyfelfontein, the first recognized Unesco World Heritage Site in Namibia. In the strangely Greek sounding town of Khorixas, we stopped at this one stop sign dusty desert outpost to stock up on groceries, gas, and give the old Corolla a wash.

The markets in rural Namibia did not have much. We were lucky to find a few local sweet potatoes, onions and garlic. The meat was all frozen. We went for the boneless skinless chicken breasts hoping they would defrost more quickly than the rest.

In line behind me a perky girl of fourteen chirped, “Hello! How are you?” Griselda asked where I came from. I told her New York and she gasped. “That’s very far away.” Yes, I said. We had not seen many people from the States during our trip thus far. Americans were still a bit of a novelty in these remote parts.

I told her she had a very beautiful country, that we were enjoying our holiday very much. “Yes, thank you. It is a beautiful country. We are poor, but proud.” I told her I could tell, that they were proud not poor. She giggled.

We talked about school- she is number two in her class and wants to be a doctor. We talked about her family- fourteen relatives from several different families all live together and she is the oldest child among them.

We were both buying chicken, I noted. John and I had picked up four chicken breasts we planned to eat over two nights, the most expensive selection by the pound in the meat section. She had a 5 lb. bag of chicken pieces on the bone, the cheap stuff, frozen solid in a family pack bag. She said they would cook it up in water and a bit of oil and eat it with corn meal porridge, they hoped to make it stretch for all 14 people.

Meanwhile the cashier protested as she was ringing us up. She ran to the freezer section and came back with a bag identical to the one Griselda held. She was trying to tell us we could buy more chicken for less money than we were spending on our boneless skinless breasts if we bought the frozen family pack. It was too hard to explain that we didn’t need that much food and that we would pay more money if it meant wasting less.

We thanked the cashier anyway. She finished ringing us up and we waved goodbye to Griselda. I hoped that her chicken dinner with porridge would feed that big family. And I prayed that smile and spirit would see her through this tough life and on to her dream of medical school.

In addition to vast desert landscapes, teaming wildlife, and dramatic mountains, Namibia is known for its cryptically named barren northern shores, The Skeleton Coast. With a name that implies death (so given for the many sailors who met their demise after ship wrecking on the bleak, deserted coast), one would not think it to be a habitat teaming with life, fish life.

Hentiesbaai, just south of the entrance to Skeleton Coast National Park, is not high on the tourist agenda unless the tourist in question is a fisherman. I’m not good with a rod nor does John have much interest but Hentiesbaai is where we found ourselves one unplanned evening, looking for a guesthouse to crash for the night.

What we found was a town not particularly friendly to tourists save for the Desert Rendezvous B&B and two restaurants the manager recommended. Fishy’s Corner, with its fishnet décor and quaint green awning, drew us in with a welcoming store front on an otherwise bleak street in an foggy, empty fishing town.

Kabeljou was the fish of choice that night. The large Afrikaner waitress in a purple and neon pink tracksuit informed us that it was just off the boat that morning. John tried to order his fried and mine sautéed. They both cam out fried but we were not disappointed. The white flesh was firm and sweet in the way only a truly fresh fish can be. It had been lightly floured and fried, served with a wedge of lemon and superfluous tartar sauce, the fish being so good on its own it did not need more than this simple presentation.

A place like this does not get many outside visitors. Perhaps we should not have been surprised then when the tracksuit waitress was put off by our questions about the fish. She immediately became defensive of her pronunciation (the Afrikaans accent was heavy), but relaxed a bit when we assured her we just wanted to know more about the fish because we liked it so much. She repeated the spelling and the fact the fish was fresh off the boat this morning. In a city that has little else to pride itself in besides their main industry, an outsider messing with the fish, even if it is a misunderstanding, is probably the ultimate insult.

Black or white, German, Afrikaans, or Damara descent, the people I met along our journey all struck me with a dignity and patriotism that rises above all contrived notions of origin and ownership. As far as I could see, from the badlands of Khorixas where Griselda lugged home frozen chicken to feed an oversized family to the barren seaside town of Hentiesbaai where our white Afrikaner waitress announced the fresh catch of the day, the people of Namibia are proud of their land… and the food that comes from it.