Restaurant Review: Roi du Cossa

Don't get too excited. This will not be a series. Adam and I have long given up on dining out in Kinshasa because it's not worth, well, dining out in Kinshasa. A cheap pizza is $20. A meal for two is almost certainly over $50. And these are not great restaurants we're talking about here.

But it's our anniversary so to give the house chef (Adam) the night off, we went out for dinner. Thanks to the upcoming Francophonie Summit traffic was a nightmare. The kind where everyone turns off their cars and gets out. After we had been sitting in the same muddy pothole for an hour, I told Adam I really wished we had just stayed home and watched Master Chef Australia. Just what every husband dreams of hearing on his anniversary.

We eventually made it those 5 miles down the road to Roi du Cossa, a Portuguese restaurant specializing in, you guessed it, cossa cossa. We were seated between parents of one of Adam's students and parents of one of my students. The perfect, romantic evening.

Cossa cossa are giant Congo river prawns, which are so big they could possibly pass as lobster tails. They're ridiculously delicious and I could eat dozens, but they only give you 6 so you don't embarrass yourself.

Speaking of embarrassing yourself, they tie a bib on you. Without even asking. But not in the novelty beach restaurant kind of way, in the you're-about-to-splash-garlic-butter-all-over-yourself-this-is-serious-business kind of way.

And just in case the bib doesn't do it's job, there's a bathtub in the bathroom. I would like to point out that I know of several restaurant bathrooms in Kinshasa with bathtubs. I feel an investigative report coming up...

In the end, Roi du Cossa was definitely worth the 5 mile/hour and a half trip. That's saying a lot for a few river prawns.

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