In Uganda, food and drinks are so affordable that a traveler can eat cheaply almost anywhere for under $2.
And for all-inclusive package travelers, the safari manager usually takes care of picking the hotel, lodge, or camp that serves your meal choices.
But how about when you are traveling independently, how do you get your next meal? Here’s a private traveler’s guide to eat and drink when traveling on your own in Uganda!
Eating out
If you are not too fussy and don’t mind a lack of variety, you can eat cheaply almost anywhere in Uganda.
In most towns, numerous local restaurants (often called hoteli) serve unimaginative but filling meals for under US$2.
Typically, local food is based around meat or chicken stew eaten with one of four staples: rice, chapati, matooke, and ugali (posho)—starchy cornbread eaten throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Matoke is a cooked green banana dish, served boiled or mushy heap, and the staple diet in many parts of Uganda.
Another Ugandan special is groundnut sauce and katogo, matooke with meat or groundnut dish preferred mainly by locals for breakfast.
Mandazi, the local equivalent of doughnuts, are tasty when they are freshly cooked, but rather less appetising when they are day old. Mandazi are served at hotelis and sold at markets.
You can often eat very cheaply at stalls around markets and bus stations. Cheap it may be, but for most travelers, the appeal of this sort of fare soon palls.
The typical choice for travelers is the “Rolex”—not a watch but a roll of the tasty omelet in a chappati (like Indian flatbread), tasty and filling and made in almost every town around Uganda.