There are dozens of restaurants to choose from in Jambiani, you could easily spend two weeks here and eat at a different place for every meal. There’s good variety, from local restaurants, to those serving traditional food and then places which cater for tourist palates with pizza, pasta, sandwiches – and even a Polish restaurant! Here are the best cheap restaurants in Jambiani which we found, the most expensive being about £8 for a huge dinner, juice and enough spare to take home with you.
The best place we ate: Karibu restaurant Set back from the beach on the village road in Jambiani, you can tell this place is going to be great from the sign outside. A tiny restaurant with only a couple of tables it's best to book in advance (hmtege@hotmail.com) - but always worth swinging by to see if there is availability if you don't like advanced planning. The owner, Hassan, is incredibly welcoming and friendly. He cooks a huge selection of tasty local dishes which he brings out one after another until you ask him to stop before you have to roll home. There's no menu as such, just what he has made that day, but we enjoyed fish curry, sautéed vegetables, homemade bread, stewed green banana and a delicious bean paste with a peanut butter base which we couldn't get enough of. All for 22,000TZS each and that includes 1.5 litres of his morish speciality juice and a loyalty scheme whereby if you visit again he bakes you a coconut cake!
Best for variety: Chez Hassan This place is easily found from the beach, close to the tip of the south end and near Zanzistar. Busy throughout the day but always welcoming, we were drawn here due to the extent of their menu; local food, Thai and Asian dishes, seafood and Italian plates. That variety is quite rare from what we’d seen and the food lived up to its promise with flavoursome meals – but please don’t expect perfection as if you were in Italy or Thailand themselves!
Very good value: Café Yellow Card Set slightly back from the beach road and locally-run, this restaurant is super welcoming with a good indoor and outdoor setting. The friendly service even extended to the chef coming to speak to us when we asked for a slight change to one of the salads on the menu – with them accommodating willingly with an exclamation of hakuna matata! When it came out the salad was so fresh and delicious, and the local meatball and coconut curry with mashed potato was also full of great flavours and clearly made with love. There are also some bungalows to stay at here, a definite budget alternative to staying beachside, whilst still close to all the action.
The guesthouse: New Iddi Villa This is actually where we stayed for four nights, so whilst it isn't a restaurant in its own right it has a delicious local menu for dinner time which I'm sure they'd serve to visitors who are in the south end of the village looking for a good meal. We'd recommend the chicken masala as it has a great flavour and zing to it - but don't expect a sign to find the place, as there isn't one. Follow our map and look for the tall water tank tower outside the front door. The manager is so welcoming and it's only 15,000TZS for a lot of the dishes.
The local favourite: Stone Culture So, we’d heard really good things about this place and went to visit one evening, only to find that it had closed down and the restaurant sign had been boarded over. A little bemused as it had been spoken of so highly we walked around town to find somewhere else and discovered that the restaurant has just moved to a new and bigger location due to its popularity. The owner was putting some finishing touches to the place and told us it would be open two days later – our last night. We knew this was Africa time though, and as expected when we went to check a couple of days later there were still a few final things to do and we were going to miss the grand re-opening by one day. That means we haven’t actually tried the food, but from seeing the place, meeting the owner and hearing other reviews we had to include it on this list.
And one place to avoid.
For lunch we liked to try the restaurants and resorts lining the beach, usually sharing a plate to keep costs down and because our breakfasts and dinners were so big anyway.
Uhuru looked appealing so we ordered one fish and avocado sandwich, paying at the time and expecting 2,000TZS in change. 45 minutes later and no sign of either, but the owner comes up to us asking if we're waiting for the sandwich and says 'it's on its way'. Clearly it wasn't. Another fifteen minutes and still nothing, so we prompt the waiter for our change. It takes one hour and fifteen minutes for this sandwich to reach us - the restaurant only has two other guests and we've had no word as to what happened, but we polish it off in ten minutes and look to leave. When we do, they still haven't even tried to get our change at which point we say we have somewhere else to be and they miraculously pop next door for change and have it to us within five minutes...we know the motto here is hakuna matata but we nearly hakuna-ed their matata after that.
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