"Can you tell him the menu?"

“Can you tell him the menu?” Kenneth asks the waitress.
“We only have the round bread sandwich today.”
Kenneth pauses.
“The same thing you always get.”
“Ah, okay. And what is she having?” Kenneth points to a woman sitting at our table having what looks to me like cornbread wrapped in tinfoil.
“Shortbread.”

I order one round bread sandwich, the reason I asked Kenneth to show me this restaurant, and Kenneth orders one shortbread.

The round bread sandwich arrives on a plate with a knife and a fork. It’s basically a breakfast wrap with scrambled egg, a boiled hot dog sliced into rounds and then grilled, ketchup and mayonnaise rolled up in what I assume is one half of a pita and then grilled on the outside to crisp the edges and seal the sandwich. I was reminded very much of the street cart food in Philadelphia. Delicious, greasy, obviously all cooked on the same hot flat surface. On Kenneth’s advice I eat it with my hands.

-

What was most interesting to me was that the restaurant is tucked away in a small business arcade built inside of a burned out building. From the ashes of war rises the phoenix of commerce, something like that. Poetics aside, it was a good sandwich and decently priced at 50 Liberty. A similar sandwich in the ex-pat catering restaurants would probably cost about $2 USD. So yes, local sit-down restaurants do exist in Monrovia but they can be hard to find.