Is this the world’s best restaurant for hellbent carnivores?

IF YOU’RE a vegetarian this is one restaurant you should avoid. It’s the ultimate bucket list eatery for the hellbent carnivore.

More meat with you meat?

THE HUSKY smell of African animals being barbecued over hot charcoal fills the air in this dimly lit restaurant on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital Nairobi.

I take a seat and a food-bearing waiter, wrapped in a zebra-print apron and with beads of sweat on his forehead, appears at my table. ‘‘Ox testicles,’’ he says as he plonks beige balls onto my warmed cast iron plate. ‘‘Which sauce goes with that?’’ someone asks. It’s a scorching hot October day and we’re visiting the Carnivore restaurant, a few kilometres from the city. This protein-obsessed establishment, twice voted among the world’s 50 best restaurants by Britain’s Restaurant Magazine, is one of Kenya’s most popular eating houses among locals and safari-bound tourists alike. Today an ostrich, camel, cow, pig, sheep, crocodile and some chickens have all been slaughtered and will be eaten by the patrons of this 420-seat eatery. Whole joints of meat — long legs, huge haunches and the rumps of various animals — that hang on traditional Masai swords are roasting over a huge, spectacular charcoal pit that dominates the entrance of the restaurant. I’m in the midst of sampling the African section of Noah’s ark. ‘‘A beast of a feast,’’ Carnivore’s pamphlet declares. This set-price, all-you-can-eat grill room makes no show of embracing the familiar restaurant rites of passage. Forget perusing a menu or waiting to order: just take a seat and eat, and eat, and eat. The only way to stop the army of waiters delivering chunks of prime meat to your plate is to lower the table’s white flag. Our flag is still flying and the conversation stops and starts as we munch on skewered kidneys, chicken gizzards and beasts’ balls. I discover — ox testicles are rubbery; camel is like beef but with an awful aftertaste; crocodile tastes like chicken; and ostrich meatballs are similar to Ikea’s Swedish meatballs but don’t have the lingonberry jam. A waiter dressed up as a bush doctor appears and places a Dawa cocktail, a ‘‘medicine’’ of vodka, lime, sugar and honey, in front of me and everything starts to taste a lot better. We hardly need to continue our safari when many of the animals we hope to spot are right here on our plates. But is there giraffe? I’m happy to learn that Carnivore no longer serves giraffe. Our table’s flag is finally lowered and we exit the restaurant. On the bus back to my hotel, I laugh when I turn around and see some others in my group passed out on the back seat, having eaten too many ox balls and imbibed too many Dawas. IF YOU GO: Carnivore (www.tamarind.co.ke), Langata Road, near Wilson Airport, Nairobi. Continue the conversation on Twitter @newscomauHQ | @LeahMcLennan