This is one place I had always by-passed whenever in Musanze town. But blame that on the rather misleading name.

Housed in a colonial-style residential building with white-washed walls, the facility could do with a fresh coat of paint.

Walking into the reception area is a continuation of this tale, and the sight that immediately greets you is that of three tired-looking refrigerators; one branded by Mutzig, the other by Coca Cola plus another all huddled at one corner of the tiny reception counter.

While searching for a bite late Wednesday afternoon, the name Tourist Rest House featured prominently from the group I was with.

What we found waiting for us was almost too good to be true, considering the time we arrived (3:30 pm), and the location (Musanze).

The manager, John simply led us to the buffet in the dining hall, and left us to our devices.

They do a limited selection of African buffet with the usual suspects –beef, chicken, ground nut sauce, beans, peas, cassava, posho, rice, potatoes…, so all we did was to heap our plates. As a plus, the food was steaming hot and did not look like leftovers, considering the time.

All I did was heap my plate with variety; chicken, peas, g.nut sauce, rice, and sweet potatoes and some greens.

There were no complaints about the food from the group, and for my case, there weren’t any leftovers on my plate either.

Perhaps the only glitch came with the drinks, in that after a bit of waiting for my passion juice, what eventually arrived was not exactly that, but rather a punch between passion fruit and tree tomatoes.

That wouldn’t have been reason enough to complain, but the punch did not come chilled as per the order, but rather something closer to room temperature. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it was only mildly sweet –more like water melon juice.

Perhaps the best thing about the buffet is the price differentiation according to choice of dish.

To sample all the meats on the buffet, one will have to part with Rw f 4,000, while chicken alone will cost you 2,500. The rest are fish fillet (Rw f 2,000), beef (1,800), with the cheapest being the vegetarian option (Rw f 1,400).

Sadly however, we only got to learn of this otherwise good arrangement after we’d had our fill. But a plus about their buffet is that it is perhaps the longest-running in Musanze town, opening at 10:00am and closing at 11:00 pm.

They do breakfast that runs from 6:00-10:00 am, and also have six self-contained rooms of varying prices.