A little (neutral) patch of "home"

As Sarah mentioned on our other blog, we tried a new restaurant on Friday night - Rudy's French-Swiss Gourmet Restaurant. It's in our neighborhood.

What a delightful place. It was cool and damp outside, so we sat inside by the fire. The main room feels like an old, colonial house. All over the walls are photos of Rudy over the years. We sat under the one of him with Sir Edmund Hillary, quite appropriate for the day. On the other side of the table was a picture of him with some others playing elephant polo. He's sort of like a modern-day adventurer, although you never really think of the Swiss as adventurers - they're so conservative. On the other walls were pictures of cities in Switzerland - Basel, Zurich. We recognized most of them.

Rudy himself is, indeed, from Switzerland - St. Moritz, the German-speaking part. He was a flight attendant for Swiss Airlines for 20 years and spent many of them training flight attendants for Eastern African airlines. So he's been all over the world. He started this restaurant seven years ago. He spent the holidays in Switzerland and brought back many cheeses, he told us.

We had to have the fondue, of course. Sarah thought it was good, but I just didn't think it was the same. It wasn't heavy and thick enough. But it was a good night for a big Swiss cheesy meal. And it was fun to taste a bit of "home" - or at least our former home. It was a bit on the expensive side, however, but, of course, we were very used to that in Switzerland, so even the prices are authentic!

So, if any of you come to visit us and want a taste of Switzerland in the middle of Africa (especially if you didn't get to visit us in Europe), we'd be happy to take you to Rudy's!