Picky eaters in Abidjan

I love African food.  And by African food, I mean dibi, thiéboudienne, thiébouyapp, yassa, pastels.  My starch of choice is couscous, or potatoes.  In short, I should be living in Senegal.  But I'm not.  I'm in a country where when I tell people that I don't eat white rice, cassava (in all its myriad forms), or sweet potatoes, they look at me like I have two heads and ask what I do eat.  In Abidjan, the shortest answer to that question is chicken.  Basically, I eat "poulet braisé" and "poulet frit". And that's about it.

One of the many "poulet" dishes I've had in Abidjan

But that can get old (I know I have) you can stick to Ivorian fare and move on to fish, or you can try your luck with foreign cuisines and imported foods.  I went with the latter and ended up having lunch at Paul today in Zone 4.  It was good.  Really good. I had a quiche Lorraine and felt confident enough to eat the salad, the raspberry tart was perfect and I realized how much I missed western food. My lunch buddy had a sandwich and 2 coffees.  Altogether our bill was 16 000 Francs.

Even though I am writing this hours later, I realize how much food affects my state of mind.  The foods I naturally gravitate towards do not grow here and are imported.  They are expensive, and would kill any reasonable persons’ budget. I am going to have to find some kind of happy medium, between the affordability of local foods, and the splurge of imported ones.