Buffet featuring local food

When one is contemplating establishing a restaurant from scratch, there are several considerations that one has to take into account, inter alia, the paramount factors being location, the desired and perceived clientele that one is planning to attract, theme, genre of food viz. local, continental, Oriental etc. Despite location also being important, Verses is not the worst choice location wise with the added benefit that it is situated on a relatively large piece of land and owned by Kayanja eliminating the rent aspect.

For an investment of this scale and specialisation, there are specialist restaurant architects/designers available in nearby South Africa and of course from Europe and North America other than using jua kali locals. Before setting up shop Kayanja would have been well advised to seek their advice and wisdom so as to avoid unforeseen pitfalls and half-baked concepts. Judging by the look of things these wise sages from abroad were never consulted. A pointer towards this anomaly is the open kitchen design which is totally ill suited for our local food method of cooking. 

A private dining room in a restaurant is always a great cachet and affords diners maximum privacy and puts any eatery a notch above others. We were no fewer than a score or thereabouts but I was dismayed to see that a half dozen seats had been set aside along the wall presumably allowing for more diners at the expense of the agreed number. This meant that we had to be squeezed since the table arrangement (I noticed that they had added two more tables at either end which sorely lo

Frankly speaking, this private dining room at Verses, the size of a postage stamp, is unrealistically small and should have been designed for at least three dozen comfortably including a serving area. Besides the place being tiny, ventilation was very poor and being a hot day we felt terribly uncomfortable. Air conditioning for such a banqueting room is sine qua non and lack of same is unacceptable. Worst of all is not having space for our own private buffet which meant that we had to walk down the stairs and be served from the main serving area which is adjacent to the kitchen and then bring the food upstairs. This is such a put off and a non-starter that is bound to discourage would be clients who would have otherwise been desirous of holding a function in the private dining room. I for one would never have hired the place for such a function.

When it came to the buffet that included a soda and fruits, before discoursing upon the food, it is an embarrassment beyond words to fork out shs 35,000 and be served a smidgen of a pineapple piece on your plate heaped with food. The promised variety of fruits were never served! This was dismaying, inexcusable and wholly unacceptable. As for the food, we were given two choices of rice from which to choose: steamed (white) and pilao. The matooke was exemplary and the beef stew was not bad while the chicken was deep fried (yikes) and dry, and there were the usual accompaniments such as yams, posho, sweet potatoes, groundnut sauce and greens which were parceled out as though they were medicine.

In the tradition of the Ugandan way of doing things, we were strictly served by the staff which meant that one got one tiny piece of meat and a small morsel of chicken with the whole exercise amounting to rationing. Better that management charges an extra Shs5,000 and allow people to serve themselves than suffer the ignominy of being served miserly portions of food and let them serve themselves.  It behooves the powers that be to check out the Copper Restaurant Sunday buffet which clocks in at the same price but is comparatively magnificent and worthy of every cent and then some and best of all fully self-service!

The standard of the food at Verses is par for the course and the loos are impeccable while the service is good.