Kilifi Travel Guide

Breakfast doesn’t get much better than this. In numerous eateries up and down the Kenyan coast from first light onwards you will see a veiled woman outside of the café or restaurant sitting next to at least one sufuria (aluminium cooking pot) full with freshly made Mbaazi. Mbaazi are pigeon peas cooked once then cooked again with the addition of coconut-milk and the odd chilli thrown in along with a decent pinch of salt. Sometimes a second smaller sufuria containing only smooth and sweet coconut-milk, from which an added spoonfull of the pure milk is poured over the small bowl mbaazi as an embellishment.

Why cafés don’t make their own mbaazi I have no idea but it always is left to a private individual to provide the mbaazi whilst the café will provide the tea and the chapattis or mahamri the triangular doughnuts that are used to scoop up the mbaazi in their hollow insides making almost a small parcel coconut peas wrapped in the sweet fried dough of the mahamri.

Favorite Dish: Most mornings in Mnararni where I was staying over the bridge from Kilifi I ended up eating mbaazi at the Maus Café but the few day s I spent in Mombasa the mbaazi was excellent at Mwembe Tayari café. It is not just for sale in these towns but most mornings between Lamu and Lunga Lunga you will find mbaazi being sold in local cafes.

In Mnararni I was buying my daily dose of mbaazi for 15 bob in Mombasa at Mwembe I paid 20.