Kilimandjaro, Riverside, Stockton (From The Northern Echo)

Stockton safari

5:27pm Monday 30th January 2012 in Reviews By Peter Barron

Peter Barron goes in search of the exotic – and finds himself heading off to Teesside

MY wife is a Bulawayo girl. Of Irish descent but born and raised in Africa, she has naturally fond memories of her homeland and feels the occasional longing to go back. So, perhaps, I shouldn’t have been so surprised when she came home from work and announced: “I’d like to try Kilimanjaro.”

I admit that I was a little taken aback. Given that I need a lie down after I climb the stairs, just the thought of scaling 5,895 metres up Africa’s highest mountain left me feeling dizzy.

Luckily, the clarification followed swiftly: not Kilimanjaro the dormant volcano “Kilimandjaro” the African-Caribbean restraurant in Stockton. I’ve no idea why it is spelled with the ‘d’ inserted but she’d heard the food was good.

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Kilimandjaro can be found on the upper floor of Castlegate Mill on Stockton Riverside, opposite Joe Rigatoni’s, and 50 yards or so along from the replica of Captain Cook’s ship, Bark Endeavour.

We navigated the ring-road, which can be a little tricky, squeezed into a parking space, and found ourselves at a table with a very pleasant evening view over the twinkling River Tees.

It’s a nice enough setting, with bamboo canes, a few outbreaks of foliage, a picture of an elephant and some zebra-print wallpaper attempting to create the spirit of Africa.

The place was busy – always a good sign – and a very un-African waitress, sweet but run off her feet, apologised up front for being short-staffed as she brought us a bottle of passable, though not quite chilled, rose wine and took our order. My Bulawayo girl opted to start with haricot a la crevette – Atlantic shrimp and freshwater king prawns, cooked in garlic, tomatoes, peppers, onions and spiced tropical beans.

My choice was the mushrooms saute a la creme – freshly cooked mushrooms sauted in olive oil with special Kilimandjaro herbs and organic fresh garlic with cream, served with garlic bread.”

Despite the staff shortage, the starters were served within a perfectly acceptable ten minutes and were piping hot. The mushrooms came in a hot, tangy sauce and went down a treat. My wife tried a mouthful and declared it much better than her own starter, which came with plenty of shrimps, but not a single king prawn.

It was when the main meals arrived that Kilimandjaro began to go downhill. I was happy enough with my Kilimandjaro chicken skews – diced pieces of chicken marinated in special Caribbean spices, grilled with peppers and onions and a dashing of the famous Kilmandjaro sauce, served on pita (sic) bread, with chips and sala.

The chicken skews were certainly tasty, though a little over-done, and they came with a decent portion of proper chips.

However, my wife wished she hadn’t gone for one of only three vegetarian options – Caribbean Vegetables, a house special treat for vegetarians, an authentic and exotic twist of mixed vegetables marinated in special African-Caribbean spices, cooked in peanut butter sauce, with rice.

The authentic and exotic twist of mixed vegetables turned out to be a huge bowlful of cabbage and onions. We had a game of finding the exotic vegetables – “elusive vegetables” would have been a better description – and managed to find two small pieces of plantain and a few diced peppers. To make matters worse, the salad was dominated by yet more pickled cabbage.

There’s a limit to how much cabbage and onions a Bulawayo girl can eat so most of it was still in the bowl when the waitress came to clear the table.

“Was everything all right?” she asked.

“Well, it was a bit light on the exotic vegetables,” replied my wife.

“Yes, it was a lot of cabbage and onions, wasn’t it?” replied the waitress, knowingly, adding a polite apology.

Neither of us had room for a dessert or coffee and the bill came to a reasonable £41 – £9.45 of which was accounted for by the Kilimandjaro mountain of cabbage and onions.

Having not really scaled the heights, the longing to go back isn’t overwhelming.