"Garlic? Bread? It's the future..."

...to (roughly) quote Mr. Peter Kay!

Whilst the boys of this world were watching the football last night, the girls of this world (well, Leanne, Erin and I) decided to go to ‘Funkees’ and sample ‘the best Pizza in Kumasi’, according to one reader of the Bradt Guide.

It started off fairly well, with two out of the three of us getting our first choice for drinks… only the sprite was "finished".

So then we saw garlic bread on the menu. 10 months in Africa and the prospect of Garlic bread made my mouth water… amid much excitement we ordered one garlic bread, and one garlic bread with cheese. We were discussing what form this may take as I sat back, confident, in my chair, thinking really, what could go wrong with Garlic Bread? But Leanne, with the wisdom of one who has eaten at many a Ghanaian Chop Bar, reminded us “you never know what to expect in Africa…”

The waiter came over as we were reading the menu, to explain to us that out of 16 pizzas they only had nos. 3 to 11. Unperturbed, Leanne ordered pizza no. 5, the veggie pizza, and back he trots a few minutes later with “Oh, Sorry Madam, we do not have the Vegetable Pizza”. On further discussion, it turned out that actually they had no mushrooms, and if Leanne was happy with no mushrooms, she could have the veggie pizza. Erin then tried to order a cheeseburger; “Oh, Sorry Madam, the Burger is finished”. Ok. I ordered my Medium size tuna pizza, Erin settled with a tuna sandwich.

So, we sat and chatted and drank our drinks, while the anguished cheers and shouts of the various Manchester United and Chelsea fans went up around us, and waited for our meal. Erin’s sandwich came first, nicely cut into triangle shapes, held together with a cocktail stick, followed closely by two plates of what looked like more triangle sandwiches. The Garlic Bread, we correctly assumed, in a slightly different form from what maybe I had expected, but, eager to taste that hot buttery garlic on soft warm bread, we all launched in, only to simultaneously choke and deposit our mouthfuls on the floor. On closer inspection, the ‘Garlic Bread’ was a crushed raw garlic sandwich, on lightly toasted bread. No butter, no herbs, no salt and pepper. And the ‘with cheese’ version was the same, with a DairyLea Cheese Slice tucked in for good measure.

Then the pizzas came, and, to be fair, they were good – oven baked, with nice soft dough and tasty fillings. But Leanne's ‘no mushrooms’ pizza turned put to be a no pineapple, no sweetcorn, no tomato pizza – she said it was basically a onion and green pepper pizza, while my pizza was a large, not a medium, because ‘the cheese is already measured out in large portions’.

Bewildering.