16th July '08 - '1908' Restaurant

In celebration of 2 birthdays in our group, we decided to have a special dinner and to try out '1908'. Unfortunately we ended up having a VERY disappointing evening, this was partly our fault. We arrived without having booked and found that the entire venue was booked for a private function but the hostess made us feel as welcome as she could and placed us at a table outside in the courtyard. The weather wasn't too cold and the table was beautifully set but a very attentive waiter, the sad thing was that we never experienced '1908' at all. We had a nice meal, the Xacuti Curry was tasty and reasonably priced, the pizza was good and also reasonably priced and then came the horror or all horrors ...... the men ordered a whole chicken and one of our lady's ordered a half chicken. The chicken was tasty but the price charged on our bill was enough to make you feel like you'd choked on a chicken bone! '1908' tried to charge us 420Mtn for a whole chicken. Admittedly there had been a little confusion - we were presented with 2 menus when we sat down - the outside menu and the a la carte menu. The outside menu priced a half chicken at 85Mtn, which is very reasonable and the a la carte chicken just said 'grilled chicken' 210Mtn. So comparing the 2 menus we understood that 'grilled chicken' was a full chicken at that price .... we have never paid more than that for a full chicken anywhere in Maputo so far. On presentation of the bill the waiter tried to tell us that the 'grilled chicken' was a half chicken and that the boys had all ordered double portions and so were charged double and we were charged the 'grilled chicken' price of 210Mtn for the half chicken ordered! It took quite a fight to eventually come to an agreement on price so it was a sad end to the evening. I do think we would try and go there again but it would be with caution. The menu was reasonably priced so we don't understand the logic on the Mozambican staple, 'Frango'. '1908' is situated on the corner of Eduardo Mondlane & Salvador Allende and our recommendations would be: 1. Book before you go (Tel: 21 424 834) and 2. Don't have chicken until you confirm the price! The one consolation is that everytime I've tried to book a table at '1908' the restaurant has been full and they do cater for a lot of functions.