Ten best meals

Pella lunch
Originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Well, while we are at it, and before we forget, we present our favourite meals:

1 First meal in Aleppo, upstairs in an old Christian house, served the most tasty hummus and kebabs and salad and chips, washed down surprisingly enough (we were in Syria) with local beer

2 Second meal in Aleppo, in the souk, pita bread, lined with tomato sauce and herbs, with tasty kebabs, and for almost nothing. No beer, this was lunch and a very Muslim place.

3 Lasagna on the Omo, one of the last nights, so a good ten days since we last saw a shop, cooked in a Dutch oven, lit with local firewood, under the sand. Delicious, meaty, tomato-ey and cheesey. No beer as that had run out after the first day!

4 Steak at Jessica's, in Montague, Western Cape, one of the top hundred restaurants in South Africa, fillet steak, with a sauce of mushrooms, cashew nuts and blue cheese and washed down with Springfield whole berry Cabernet Sauvignon. Heavenly.

5 Yemeni dinner in Kawkaban, served in the nafraj of an old house in this mountain village. A massive spread of Yemeni dishes, too numerous to mention, including the best chips in the world! Yemen is chip capital of the world, no contenders!

6 Bedouin barbecue in Wadi Rum, served in our bedouin tent, cooked in a Dutch oven (again) under the sand, our guide bringing his wife over to do the work, before sleeping in a tent a little bit further on.

7 Lunch in Pella, Jordan, as shown in the attached photo, perfect salads, hummus, fresh fish (for me), kebab for Fred, and with the most beautiful view down to the historical site below in a green valley, surrounded by parched earth.

8 Somali lunch in Hargeisa, in a garden restaurant on the banks of the Tug, notable for the Somali rice, full of cardamoms, cinnamon, sultanas and other ingredients. We did not eat the accompanying lamb shin, just poured the gravy over the rice.

9 Enjera in Ziway, a stop on the bus-route up from Awasa ro Addis. One of the cheapest, but the fullest and tastiest enjera of our trip, with dollops of spagheti bolognese, dirowot, cheese, salad, and shirowot. All for less than a dollar, washed down, no doubt with coke.

10 Coffee in Asmara, with Hana, her sister and family, the whole coffee ceremony, with incense, popcorn, rasting and grinding of coffee beans and an obligatory three cuos, followed by a hot enjera. Unforgettable company. Thanks again, Hana.