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| The Lansmore Hotel, Masa Center |
A swanky new movie theater with shows in 3D...
A lively courtyard with bars and a live DJ on weekends (well, until 10:30 pm anyway)...
A bunch of restaurants serving everything from Setswana food to pizza and burgers...
A hip new hotel with the best restaurant in town...
Welcome to the Masa Center!
The
Masa Center is a new development located in downtown Gaborone in what
is known as "the Central Business District." This name may be a little
bit ambitious, as most of the gleaming new office buildings that were
put up in a hurry by Chinese construction companies are standing
unoccupied. It is not clear who thought that the CBD would be a good
idea - seems that someone was overly ambitious in their desire to
attract businesses to Gaborone and thought that slapping up some
attractive buildings and calling it the Central Business District might
work in tricking people into thinking that there is actually a bustling
downtown filled with industry and productivity... ah, that elusive and
intangible element known as "business" ! So far the closest to that we
have in Gaborone would be the Government Enclave area, but I would
hardly say things are bustling there; you can, however, see lots of
depressed-looking bureaucrats shuffling their way to their various
ministry offices at 7:30 every morning!
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| Lamb chops |
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| Fish and potatoes. |
Anyway. As you
can probably tell from the above description, the Masa Center is the
only part of the new CBD that has really taken off. The focal point of
the Masa Center is the Lansmore Hotel, which is quickly surpassing the
other nice hotel in town, the Grand Palm. The Grand Palm is older with
spotty service and a more traditional steak-heavy menu at its main
restaurant, the Beef Baron,; the Lansmore has a more modern design, the
service is much more with it, and the restaurant is quite trendy with
its French fusion cuisine and extensive wine list. We had heard good
things about the Lansmore restaurant, so we decided to check it out for
our third marriage/ ninth dating anniversary on March 20.
*I say
"marriage anniversary" because we have two anniversaries: March 20 is
our dating anniversary as well as the day we got legally married at the
courthouse; May 8 is our wedding anniversary, the date of our actual
wedding ceremony and reception*
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| Creme brulee |
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| Chocolate torte. |
We really enjoyed
our meal there from the three-course set menu option and concluded that
this was the best dining experience we've had so far in Gaborone. For
appetizers we had the mussels and French onion soup; main courses were
bream with sliced potatoes and lamb chops with mashed potatoes; and for
our desserts we had chocolate torte and creme brulee. The service was
very good and we were also impressed by the wine list, which offered a
much better selection of wines by the glass (i.e. more than one white
and one red) than you can typically find in Gaborone.
Here's my Crocodile Restaurant Review Scale:
1
= Not good. I may
as well have eaten river weeds.
2= Missing
something. Anyone want to hit the river and look for something better?
3= Fine, I guess,
but I’d rather eat a hippo.
4= So good, it was
definitely worth the swim over here.
5= Forget hunting!
I’m eating here from now on.
Overall I give it a
!!
