Welcome back to my Gambia diary! Even though the holidays are long gone, I still have something to share with you. I must say I really miss it already, the travel mode in life, the excitement, the planning, the waiting, the vacation itself. I can’t wait for another adventure. But coming back to day 5 in The Gambia…
…I had a chance to eat a delicious Gambian food. We found two dishes on the menu at a restaurant that were typical for Gambia: yassa and domoda. We ordered both just to taste them. And of course our obvious choice for drink: Gambian beer – Jul Brew. We keep drinking it pretty much every day for dinner, because it’s very refreshing, not so strong and actually tasty. There are at least three versions, the regular bottled one, Jul Brew Export, which is stronger, and Jul Brew from the tap. My favourite is the regular one.
We asked at the restaurant what exactly is yassa and domoda, to have an idea of what we are ordering. So yassa is stew made of garlic, onion, mustard and herbs. You can get it with chicken or fish. And there is rice on a side. Gambians eat a lot of rice. The dish is tasty, well seasoned, I only tried the version with chicken though. Domoda is a soup, as the waiter told us, made of peanuts (main ingredient), tomatoes, chicken or beef and with a rice on a side. I loved this combination, it was delicious and quite spicy. But more like a sauce, not soup.
Yassa on upper photo, domoda on the other.
During breakfast in our hotel I also had a chance to drink baobab juice and hibiscus juice. Both are very sweet and very tasty, if you have a chance, you should definitely try. And hibiscus juice is not hibiscus tea, it’s way more concentrated.
We visited the little market again and bought a mancala board game, handmade obviously, and entertaining. The friendly man who sold it to us, taught us the rules and we played it during our second half of the vacation, on the beach, at the pool, in the rooms, in the restaurants. Everyone seems to like it. What I also discovered is that local people don’t exactly know where is Gambia on the map of Africa. I found it surprising, but if you think about it, not many of them finishes any school.
There comes another post about my Gambia holidays. The final one. Stay tuned!
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