Sushi lunch in Accra

There's been a rumour going round town (well, my circle of friends) all year. With no real facts to support it, it was beginning to sound like an urban myth. Is there really a place in Osu that serves sushi at lunchtime? If so where? It got to a point where none of us could figure out who actually said it first, where we could find out more and whether there really was any truth to the rumour.

The reason for our desperation? Ever since Noble House stopped serving sushi, as far as I know, the only sushi restaurant in central Accra (not to be confused with Accra Central which incudes Makola and its surrounding areas) is Monsoon. Its sushi restaurant opens at 7pm leaving those of us who can't be in Osu at that time, with no where at all to find sushi.

Anyways, about two weeks ago, Dee told me that she had heard that the lunch sushi joint was above Tantra, and since I'd been sushi starved for months, it only took a few days before I was there, having sushi with La Baselette, before she left Ghana once again.

The restaurant is called 3121, or something similar, for some reason the name has escaped me. It is above Tantra (the eurotechno nightclub), down the side road between Penta Hotel and Barclays on Oxford street. There's a Chinese restaurant in the same yard...but its name also vanished from my memory.

The verdict?
The food was good, tasty, but the rice wasn't as well prepared as Monsoon's. Everything was about 1 or 2 cedis more expensive than Monsoon, but there seemed to be more options available.

The interior was neat although the decor seemed heavily inspired by Memoirs of a Geisha (including actual promotional pictures from the movie), which was a bit weird.

Now, I think I've told you all you need to know, go taste it for yourselves and bon appetit!

By the way, for you other foodians out there, there seems to be a new website coming out that will be of interest to us, Eat out Ghana.

Thieving illegal immigrant

I wonder if paying your yearly dues should be the only measure of a lawyer in good standing. Apart from being reminded of my illegal immigrant status today, I also realised I am a thief. A petty one perhaps, but a thief none the same.

I've been trying to arrange so that a friend who's coming to visit can get a visa on arrival. Up until last year this was very easy, you just arrive and stand in the right queue with $100 ready and you're through. Since January though, Immigration has tightened the rules and now the person inviting you needs to get approval of the Director of Immigration before they'll let you through. Anyway, a few minutes after calling my contact at immigration for information, he calls me back to remind me that since I am not even a Ghanaian and on top of it don't hold a valid residence permit, I'm the worst person to invite a foreigner into the country! You'd think I could've worked that one out myself. I guess it's time I work on my own permit before visitors start pouring in for Christmas (I returned to Ghana after the wedding on a visa on arrival, then forgot all about my permit).

This evening as I was reading through my favourite interior design porn, I realised writing I had never noticed on the front of the IKEA catalogue.


See for yourselves: "...THIS CATALOGUE...PLEASE RETURN IT TO THE CHECKOUT AS YOU LEAVE"

I must have looked like the cheekiest little thief as I actually picked my catalogue up from the checkout, directly put it in my bag and walked out!

This evening, sushi at Monsoon was cancelled and I never made it to the textile exhibition at Goethe Institute, instead I'm going to continue browsing my way through my pile of interior design porn.


Enjoy your evening!

T G I F!

I am about to leave the office, but will (unfortunately) continue working for a bit. So glad it's the end of the week! Later on I should be meeting Ruby at Twist, but who knows, any time we actually plan to meet up, something always gets in the way...

This weekend I am really looking forward to lots of sleep. For the past week there's been some clouding and twitching over my right eye. I hope it's caused by lack of sleep, don't want to lose my perfect vision! Remember having something similar to this last year during exam times.

Apart from that, there's M2B's baby-shower to look forward to, if all goes well...Seems factors are working against Dee, the Poetress and moi, but hopefully, somehow, we'll make it happen. And maybe tomorrow I'll try and sneak in a trip to Tema Fishing Harbour to get some more prawns. Got two kilos last week for GHc18, but will try to haggle a bit more this time. After the peel came off and they were boiled, there was not much left of the those kilos! Will try to get hold of some butterfish as well. The Poetress and I devoured Line Fish sushi on Wednesday at Monsoon and I am in shock that I haven't discovered this fish yet. Could it be my Ghana substitute for salmon?

Have a good weekend!

Bohemian rhapsody

I feel I have to redeem myself. Maya's earth is beginning to look too dreary to its readers. Unless I write something more cheerful, I'm sure you'll all leave me. So I'll try and avoid the following words for a while: death, die, too young, funeral, crying, tears, body bag and...fed up.

If I succeed, promise to shower me with comments (good or bad, doesn't matter, it's just fun to read your opinions).

So instead, let me write about a less gloomy (but still my usual whining) topic: the deprivation we suffer from in Ghana. In Ghana we may never starve, freeze to death or live a life of loneliness, but there is a very real possibility that we'll d.. (darn, I can't use that 'd' word), pass away from boredom. The entertainment scene is scarce. A full night out consists of drinks at Monsoon or Twist from 10.30p.m. onwards. Sometime after midnight we all continue to the awful, cold, crowded (can you tell i'm not a fan?) Office. After wondering why we paid (if we paid) to get in, we then walk the whole 15 metres to Cinderellas. Since Cinderella has been a bit dry lately, the night ends early, around 2.30a.m. There are other nightclubs, Boomerang, Aphrodisiac and Monte Carlo, but it seems no one goes there any more, well, actually we may pass Monte Carlo once every six months.

So as you can see, the entertainment scene gets boring after three or four...weeks. For me, being here for almost three years, going out has become a once-in-a-while thing, when the visitors come to town and force you out.

So, visualise starving dogs feasting on a dead rabbit, and you can imagine the hype over Rhapsody, the latest place to open in town, at the Accra mall (isn't it a restaurant?!?). EVERY social event is now scheduled at Rhapsody, from the official ones like the Obama celebration meet up, to the hanging out on a Friday night. The Poetress even sacrilegiously suggested we eat there instead of our usual sushi at Monsoon!

Yes you may say this is an "i-lands problem" (industrial country problem as opposed to a third world problem, any English word for that?) but on a Friday afternoon, it's an all too real problem. ;)

As for me, I may not know how I'm spending my Friday night, but the next few days will be spent baby- and housesitting at H's on Spintex Road. I suspect H, his wife S and I may have different opinions on what makes a good housesitter, as I look forward to inviting lots of friends over. I may even create my own Rhapsody!

Have a good weekend!

This week

Suddenly the days are flying by so quickly, before you know it, it's time to go home. Don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. At least the social calendar is filling up quite nicely for the week, sushi with Dirty and Miami tomorrow, funeral on Thursday (well that's not fun), sushi with the poetress ; ) on Friday (see what happens when you wait several months before eating sushi, end up wanting it every day of the week), a wedding and a 70th birthday party on Saturday (both distant relatives) and possibly a lunch on Sunday in Tema (but hopefully Sunday will end up being as relaxing as it should be).

Now, off to see Virgo before we go to the gym to shape up for bikini season. That expression has no relevance here as every season really is bikini season. Went to the gym yesterday morning and did those awfully effective lower ab exercises. Will hopefully have gone from this

to a sixpack in no time!