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Having spent roughly ten days in this country surrounded by mountains and rumours, curiosity among friends and family about the everyday life is growing. Because of this, I will now start the Kabulife special series dealing with nothing more and nothing less than how I get by in this bustling and security-infused city of Kabul. So, here goes:
Kabulife #1 - Food
Rice with raisins drenched in oil, some bread and sauce. That is how I got the afghan food explained to me. However, I have not had many chances to try it. Out of the 20 lunches/dinners I've had this far, only one (1!) has been afghan style. And that was also one of the most luxurious afghan restaurants around, which logically means that the food was more than ok.
The security situation here implies that the possibility to make choices is rather limited when it comes to food. If you want to eat out, there are a number of restaurants that are on our list of UN-approved restaurants, and those can be counted on your both hands' fingers. Most of these restaurants are run by people with international experience, implying that the theme of the restaurant also is rather international. Chinese, Indian, Lebanese, French, Italian... protected by guards, doors and scanners, these are your safest bets for dinner. However, for safety reasons it is a good idea to avoid eating at the same place several days in a row (all patterns should be avoided) - especially at the Chinese since these restaurants have a rumour of providing hungry, lonely, men with more than food.
When it comes to lunch, I'm pretty stuck with the restaurants within the 150m walking limit, which gives me a choice of two different restaurants: an Indian and a Lebanese. Charging just as much for a lunch here as in Sweden, I have the last few days had different kind of Paneer dishes from the Indian restaurant together with bread from the local bakery. Good taste, good price.
Then there is of course the last option - to cook yourself. This has only happened once this far, but yesterday I was invited to dinner to one of my colleagues who had made the most fantastic food. It's surprising to see what range of goods you're able to find if you just dedicate yourself to it. I'll surely start cooking myself as soon as we settle down. However, right now we are pretty much changing the place where we live once a week, which means that I won't cook for a while. It also means that I'll probably soon have some room service pizza while watching HBO at the 5-star hotel we are about to move into next. Sometimes, life here in Kabul is actually not bad at all.
Kabulife #1 - Food
Rice with raisins drenched in oil, some bread and sauce. That is how I got the afghan food explained to me. However, I have not had many chances to try it. Out of the 20 lunches/dinners I've had this far, only one (1!) has been afghan style. And that was also one of the most luxurious afghan restaurants around, which logically means that the food was more than ok.
The security situation here implies that the possibility to make choices is rather limited when it comes to food. If you want to eat out, there are a number of restaurants that are on our list of UN-approved restaurants, and those can be counted on your both hands' fingers. Most of these restaurants are run by people with international experience, implying that the theme of the restaurant also is rather international. Chinese, Indian, Lebanese, French, Italian... protected by guards, doors and scanners, these are your safest bets for dinner. However, for safety reasons it is a good idea to avoid eating at the same place several days in a row (all patterns should be avoided) - especially at the Chinese since these restaurants have a rumour of providing hungry, lonely, men with more than food.When it comes to lunch, I'm pretty stuck with the restaurants within the 150m walking limit, which gives me a choice of two different restaurants: an Indian and a Lebanese. Charging just as much for a lunch here as in Sweden, I have the last few days had different kind of Paneer dishes from the Indian restaurant together with bread from the local bakery. Good taste, good price.
Then there is of course the last option - to cook yourself. This has only happened once this far, but yesterday I was invited to dinner to one of my colleagues who had made the most fantastic food. It's surprising to see what range of goods you're able to find if you just dedicate yourself to it. I'll surely start cooking myself as soon as we settle down. However, right now we are pretty much changing the place where we live once a week, which means that I won't cook for a while. It also means that I'll probably soon have some room service pizza while watching HBO at the 5-star hotel we are about to move into next. Sometimes, life here in Kabul is actually not bad at all.
Lite damm, stora kostymer och dålig mat av "säkerhetsskäl".. Du måste checka in på det där 5-stjärninga hotellet av hälsoskäl, annars blir man orolig.
ReplyDeleteHandels är precis som när du lämnade oss, bara så att du vet.
//Zytto