Dennis Ombachi turns high school boarding meals into comedy, but son gives unexpected verdict

Kenyan chef and content creator Dennis Ombachi, popularly known as The Roaming Chef, has turned the famously dreaded high school boarding-school meal into a hilarious cooking experiment — but his son’s reaction was not what he expected.

Ombachi recently shared a satirical Instagram reel recreating the burnt ugali and bitter sukuma wiki that many Kenyan students remember from their boarding-school days.

Episode one of a new series

Targeting Gen Z and millennials alike, Ombachi opened the post with a cheeky question:

“Have you ever wondered why Millennials look younger than you?”

The video then offered his tongue-in-cheek explanation.

He described the meal as “salted caramel Ugali served alongside fall of the bone Sukuma Wiki”, while introducing the video as the first episode of a mini-series recreating the meals that “raised or traumatized us through high school.”

Ombachi also asked his followers which school meal takes them back to their teenage years — and whether they would willingly eat it again.

Recreating the school kitchen experience

The mock cooking tutorial was filmed on a high-rise balcony overlooking the city, with Ombachi approaching the meal with the seriousness of a professional chef.

He roughly chopped the sukuma wiki before throwing it into a hot pot and allowing the bottom layer to scorch.

Rather than treating the burnt vegetables as a mistake, Ombachi jokingly described the resulting flavour as an “authentic smoky vegan barbecue flavor.”

At one point, he summed up the supposed boarding-school cooking technique:

“Wash, cook and clean at the same time, in the same pot, using the same water.”

The ugali received similar treatment. Ombachi added maize meal to boiling water and stirred it vigorously, joking that the objective was to simultaneously overcook and undercook it.

He called the result “a culinary contradiction perfected by high school chefs.”

His parenting plan backfires

Behind the comedy was a parenting experiment.

Ombachi revealed that his son had been asking to attend boarding school, prompting him to use the video and meal as a humorous warning about what awaited him.

He described the strategy as:

“Transferring generational trauma, hoping fear succeeds where parenting failed.”

But the plan did not go according to script.

After preparing the meal, Ombachi’s son tasted it and surprisingly declared that it was actually good.

The chef then turned his attention to his own generation, joking:

“You millennials, you don’t look young because of the food you ate. You are just malnourished and stopped growing.”

Kenyans relive boarding-school memories

The video triggered a wave of nostalgic and humorous reactions from followers who recognised the familiar school-meal experience.

One user, @just_ivy_africa_, said Ombachi’s ugali description left them “triggered,” while @i_amkabugi said the scorched top layer was “still the deal.”

Another follower, @djkrowbar, summed up the experience in one word:

“Trauma.”

Meanwhile, @sir_homes suggested that Ombachi’s next episode should feature githeri, complete with “a pinch of weevils for that extra protein.”