So Long, Big Bite

It is with heavy heart that I write about the likely permanent closing of Big Bite in Arusha, the best Indian restaurant I’ve ever been to and the physical manifestation in Africa of some of my greatest friendships in America.

One of my best friends from college transferred to Columbia after taking a year off, part of which he spent working at an orphanage outside of Arusha, Tanzania. Of the many, many things I have in common with this friend (an unhealthy obsession with The Wire, a year of 8am Kiswahili classes, a deep appreciation of James Brown, a love of professional basketball and a problem with coveting sneakers), food may be our holiest shared space. When talking about his time in Tanzania, my friend would lapse into a dreamlike reverie whenever he mentioned Big Bite, an Indian restaurant run by a benevolent old man where, if you asked politely, you could go in the kitchen and watch your food be cooked in an ancient clay oven. Big Bite took on mythical proportions and I vowed that if I ever made it to Arusha, I would go.

Three years later, I found myself studying abroad in southern Kenya. And my two best friends invited me to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro with them:

After a truly magnificent but exhausting five days, we decided to visit Arusha, partly for access to more direct return to Nairobi, but also because I had started talking about Big Bite. We arrived, stunned by our transition from the highest point on the African continent to our first city in five months. We wandered through Arusha’s big market, bought some cheap flip flops to give our feet a break and somehow negotiated for the three of us to stay in a room with one double bed. The evening sky began to hum with the call to prayer echoing from several of Arusha’s mosques, and we started our hajj to Big Bite. Without too much difficulty we found it, on the corner of a side street, and we made our way inside. I don’t remember many details about the interior, or even what we ate exactly, but I remember telling Mr. Big Bite that we had been sent by a tall mzungu who used to come there and that we were very happy to be seated in his warm dining room, ravenously pulling apart naan with our hands, drinking cold cokes and laughing at the majesty of our enormous and small world. Bringing my Kilimanjaro buddies, people I had spent the most intense five months of my life with, to a place that had been so important to one of my most kindred spirits in the US was a remarkable experience. For that, I will always remember Big Bite with utmost fondness.

Friends that live in Arusha now sent an email a few days ago. They’ve heard Mr. Big Bite died while visiting his home in India, likely making his temporary closing of the restaurant permanent. It will be missed.