Le Café Du Fleuve

The Hotel Yamey has WiFi and I got the password and was able to connect to the router, but the outbound connection from the router didn't seem to work. So I connected to the next door's WiFi. That is a place called le Café du Fleuve. Since I was leaching off their WiFi, I decided the least I could do was eat there. So at about 7:30pm, I headed over.

It was nice. My French was working. I was having a good French day. Yay! The hostess, a French woman, pointed out a number of tables and let me choose. I picked a seat in the back and sat down. The menu looked really good. It was a bit more than I wanted to pay, but I decided to splurge since I had a bad day with two persistent jerks who called me racist simply because I didn't want to deal with them. I needed some self-pampering. And a classy French place with impeccable African decor was just the ticket.

I decided to do an entrée and a plat. For my entrée, I chose salade de chèvre chaud sur ses toasts for CFA 4900 (US$9.80). It was divine! Four small pieces of bread with slices of goat cheese popped into a broiler and then set on a bed of lettuce with tomato and a delicious dressing. I savored every bite. I'll make this for myself when I get back home. A lot.

My plat was a pavé de bouef "Café de Paris" for CFA 6700 (US$13.40). It was a tubular piece of meat cooked medium rare--perfection--sliced onto a plate of a puréed herb I couldn't place in olive oil--like pesto, but I didn't think the herb was basil--or if it was, it was a more subtle variety of basil than I'm used to. The garniture was French fries. It was yummy. Perhaps a tad saltier than I wanted, but the meat was perfect and the herb/olive oil was so good. The fries were good too and I used one white roll and one dark roll to sop up the herb and oil. It didn't seem like much food, but it filled me up.

At the end, I had a coffee and just sat and continued reading some paragraphs from La Route and The Road filling in the parts I still can't read. Between paragraphs, I just pondered my life and my trip. I was happy. I'm learning (a bit late, perhaps) how to assert myself. I have more confidence in my ability to do anything. I am starting to become a more complete person. And my blog is going well. I'm finding my voice when I write.

In the end, the bill with tip came to CFA 15000 (US$30). One of the best meals I've had in West Africa. Most of the clientele was white--it is an expensive place in a poor country, but there a a few tables with Africans--perhaps celebrating something or enjoying being able to eat after the sun went down and deciding to do it in style. I won't be in Bamako long enough to go there again, but for anyone who needs an escape from the hectic crush of annoying touts and persistent hustlers who seem to be even worse here than in Dakar, this is a wonderful restorative getaway for 2/3 of you would pay in the United States or half of what you pay in France for the same meal.

September 16, 10:00 Mali local time