Rice and Beans at Mme. Ile's

This year, I have had lunch with Marc several times down the street at Mme. Ile's (pronounced eelay) house. Today, I told Marc that we need to start eating at her place every Saturday. We mostly go there for rice and beans. There is no menu. You get whatever she is making that day and the price is always 10 Haitian dollars (50 Goud). If you get a Coke with your meal, and we always do, then it is 14 Haitian dollars (70 Goud) which is the equivalent of about $1.75 US. I remember the first time I went there. I was told where it is at, but the restaurant isn't really like a restaurant and I was not sure about going inside. Actually, I didn't even know you could go in to eat. I thought that maybe I was just supposed to go up to a window, order, pay and take my food with me. There are several street vendors, so we often buy food and then take it to go.

So, Mme. Ile's house has a wall around it, like many houses here with a metal gate. You first pass through the gate and take a left. From here, you can see a concrete room with a curtain hanging in the entrance. It looks similar to a white table cloth that my grandma used to have on her dining table. It is white with lace around the edges. For all I know, it is a thin old table cloth. The ground beneath your feet is dirt and covered with bottle caps, all turned right side up and pressed into the dirt from all the foot traffic. I figure that over the course of a few years, they might be able to have a walkway that is completely made up of bottle caps. Once you pass by the curtain, the room inside is completely concrete. The walls are made of block and are unfinished. The floor is concrete, but not quite level. To the left is a very long table which is made out of particle board with veneer covering it, except for the edges which have been chipped away and are eroding. The chairs all vary in shape and size; some are stools all about the same height. Many of the chairs look like they consist of an old frame from a padded chair that went bad where the pads were replaced with plywood. To be quite honest, this is probably the worst atmosphere of any restaurant I have been in. Quite often, there are a few chickens running around on the floor. Sometimes they are just sitting there resting while other times they are just passing through, from one room to the next. As I said, the doorway just has a curtain. On the other end of the room is another door which leads to another room where the cooking is done. Nevertheless, the food is great, so we keep going back!

There are only a few different meals that Mme Ile makes. One is "diri ak sas pwa avek legim" (rice and bean sauce with legume). This is one of my favorite. You get a heaping portion of white rice which is covered with what is called legume. From what I understand, it doesn't have any legumes in it. I believe the main ingredients are cabbage, a little tomato paste, onions, some goat meat and bones for flavoring, parsley and maybe a few domestic herbs. Then, on the side we get a bowl of black bean sauce. The bean sauce is simply black beans mashed over and over with water added to make a soup like sauce. It is very good. Some seasonings may be added, but I am not sure. We pour this all over the rice.

Today we had rice with beans and a side dish of what seemed like legume but was a little different. The side dish seemed more like a beef stew. It had carrots, potatoes and goat meat inside. I poured mine all over the rice and beans.

As I mentioned, we get a heaping plate of rice, so much so, that I try not to drink too much of my Coke so I have room for all the food. I can fit the Coke in later. Well, today, I had slowed down and Marc destroyed me; he finished at least five minutes before I did. As he was waiting, he started watching the chickens that were passing through. He had a few pieces of rice on his plate, so he put them on his spoon and catapulted them across the table onto the floor. The chickens went nuts trying to eat it all. They were bobbing all over pecking at the concrete. I couldn't help myself and started shotgunning the rice all over the floor between bites. Now, it may sound like we were making a big mess, but let me tell you, the floor couldn't get any dirtier and these chickens weren't going to leave a piece untouched. It was all getting cleaned up...let me assure you. Besides, this isn't your 5 star restaurant. I was in this place one day when it smelled like diesel fuel. I didn't know why the smell was so strong until Mr. Ile told us that he had just cleaned off the table with kerosene. Lunch that day was a little difficult to put down, but we did it. So, I would compare us this day to someone who was tossing bread on the ground for some ducks. I mean, we weren't even wasting food. We'll eat that rice one day...it will just be in the form of chicken.