African Food: Advice needed - PLEASE!!!?!
To give you some idea, in England if you order Roast Beef, you would also ask for Roast Potatoes, vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding. This is the sort of advice I'm looking for from the menu.
Thank you all in advanced
Answers: I am going to an African restaraunt tomorrow night (Friday) and it will be the first time I have experienced this, please check the full menu by clicking here http://www.mamacalabar.co.uk/ and tell what I should order, what goes with what.
To give you some idea, in England if you order Roast Beef, you would also ask for Roast Potatoes, vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding. This is the sort of advice I'm looking for from the menu.
Thank you all in advanced
Hi, i am nigerian and my parents are from a little village near calabar so i am familiar with the menu.
Of course i cant help you on what to order because what tastes great to me may be repulsive to you.
everything on the appetizers menu is similar to what you may get a a chinese restaurant, no culture shock there. the only thing i truly dislike is the moi moi, which is ground beans, that is later boiled. eww, my mom loves it though. the chin chin is fried dough, i know they eat this alot in trinidad. i dont like the chinchin because its hard and labor intensive to eat. the snails are ok and of course you can never go wrong with fried plantains.
the grills are self explanatory so obviously order whichever one speaks to you.
the suya is really really good, its similar to "beef jerky" in america but only better. Its actually not a calabar food, its a northern african food found common expecially in muslim parts of nigeria. it is basically smoked meat in spices. its great. you may order this with rice and vegetables, of course it can be eaten alone.
for the soups i will recommend the peppersoup which is cooked goat meat in spices.
for the main course, everything is fine but i would avoid the first segment of edikangikong, okras, whitesoups and egusi soups, all those are eaten with pounded yam or garri. My friends and boyfriend who hadnt had african food before tend not to like it. in other words, start small. its really good but its unlike anything u may have eaten before and it may turn you off to the experience.
A lot of it, you would have tasted before because some brazilian, trinidadian and southern carribean food come straight from west africa's gold coast.
Have fun!
ask if they sell jollof rice. it is very nice..
but enjoy what you can coz african food is very nice
Africa is a continent not a country. So be more specific next time. Also, they aren't going to kill you. Just go into the restaurant, ask the people around you what they ordered, ask the waiter and try something new. It's suppose to be a new experience, not the same old stuff. Just have fun.
Why do you want to look like you know how to order as if you have been to Africa before and know the cuisine & how to eat? I never try to pretend to know something I don't. That is the worst thing you can do. Just look at the menu & order what looks like it will taste good to your mouth. You can be honest & tell the folks you are trying to impress that you have never ate in an African restaurant before.
humm im african and have never heard of these things, i think this is like West African food, like someone said u shuld be more specific..but u shuld try anythin since its ur 1st time, i wuld stay away from the "tripe" tough, isint that the insides of an animal?
Palm-butter stew with steamed plantains. Pepper soup with goat and fufu (pounded yam). Beef with ground melon seed and mustard-green soup. Gastronomically, Africa is the undiscovered continent for most local diners, but a trio of new restaurants offering dishes from Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria has the potential to fill a major void on our dining scene.
At Tam-Tam's African Restaurant in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, chef-owner Stephen Kaggwa serves dishes from his native Uganda, as well as dishes from West Africa and Ethiopia. At Three Crowns Restaurant & Catering in Minneapolis' Lyn-Lake neighborhood, Adijat Lawal offers an extensive Nigerian menu. And at Kenkayba's Place, which opened late last fall on University Avenue in St. Paul, chef-owner Cecilia Woode prepares dishes from her native Ghana, and recently added American soul food to her menu.
I don't know how many non-African customers frequent these restaurants, but in all three, I have been made to feel very welcome. Owners and staff have happily answered my questions about their food, language and culture. All offer at least a few dishes that even unadventurous diners can enjoy, but for more intrepid eaters they offer a chance to savor dishes seldom seen in the Midwest.
Tam-Tam's probably has the broadest appeal. The Cedar Avenue storefront has been handsomely decorated with African art and crafts. Starters include lightly battered ground beef kebabs, little chicken pies that resemble Finnish pasties, and sambosas, triangular pastries filled with your choice of mildly seasoned spiced ground beef or seasoned lentils. All are recommended, but you may want to save your appetite for the generously portioned main courses.
My favorite was the West African savory palm-butter stew, prepared with your choice of beef, goat or chicken. (I tried it with chicken and found it delicious.) The same choice of meats accompanies Tam-Tam's stew, a Central African dish served with a savory meat gravy with chapati (flat bread), rice, starchy steamed plantains or ugali, a steamed ball of smooth white corn meal. The other Central African specialty, a whole fried tilapia served with a savory gravy, is also recommended.
Big meat eaters will enjoy the nyama kyoma, Hunter's Ribs, a huge chunk of broiled beef served on the bone, with a spicy kachumbari relish of tomatoes, onions and cucumbers on the side. I was less excited by the matooke, a Ugandan specialty available on weekends only. It's basically a huge mound of steamed mashed plantains, served as the starch to accompany your choice of beef, goat or chicken. I am sure this dish brings happy memories to homesick Ugandans, but I found it very bland.
Tam-Tam's will start serving wine and beer this week.
Three Crowns opened this summer in the tidy storefront formerly occupied by Wazobia Nigerian restaurant at 2817 Lyndale Av. S. Ordering main dishes at Three Crowns is a mix-and-match process: You pick any three meats from a list that includes beef, beef tripe, chicken, turkey or cow feet and combine with your choice of starch. The semolina, white rice, fried rice, and tomato-flavored jollof rice are all pretty familiar, but other starches are exclusively West African: iyan (pounded yam), amala (ground cooked yam), and eba (cooked dried cassava). These West African starches are served in baseball-sized portions, and come with your choice of soup. I haven't tried the jute-leaf soup, but I enjoyed the mustard-greens soup and the slightly slimy, but delicious, okra soup. There's lots more on the Three Crowns menu that I would like to try, ranging from the goat meat pepper soup and boiled yam with fried eggs, tomato and onion to the gbegiri, a bean soup cooked with palm oil and spices. If you aren't that adventuresome, try the beef kebabs or the chicken with jollof rice.
You'll find some similar dishes on the menu at Kenkayba's Place, which is no surprise, since Ghana and Nigeria are almost neighbors. On a previous visit, I enjoyed the peanut butter soup, served with a choice of beef, chicken, goat or fish (kingfish or croaker) and rice, fufu (pounded yam) or another West African starch. There's not much in the way of ambience; much of the business seems to be carry-out.
My greatest find on a recent return visit was the waakye, very accurately billed as the Whole Nine Yards. It's a platter piled high with black-eyed peas and rice cooked together, topped with spaghetti, choice of beef or goat, a fried tilapia fillet, fried plantains and gari (a couscous made from cassava). My friends and I loved it, and the larger portion ($15) is big enough for two or three.
The complex and savory eggplant stew, prepared with fried kingfish, tomatoes, onions and peppers, is also highly recommended. But I'd steer clear of the dish listed as dried okra stew (I later learned it's actually made from ogbono, wild mango kernels); I thought it tasted like soap. I haven't tried the new soul-food offerings, but they include fried chicken, ribs, fish and collard greens.
i have been cooking africain food for approx 7yrs as baby dad ivorian
basic rules are
the rice could be cous cous or fufu or simple rice
the sauce go for tomato sauce cant go wrong goes with anyting and tastes so yummy
the meat beef chicken or fish
let him order first and get a rough idea
my fave has to be
attieke, salad with advocado and the oil vingar and cube dressing with aloco on the side with chili side dip
simple terms what i mentioned there ivorian type of cous cous well more commonly known in ivorian anyway with africain salad and aloco is plantain
if its on menu try it
The only thing that looked good was the "accompaniments" such as rice and yams. Also desert which said fresh fruit. The main dishes seemed freaky. Some kind of meat I have never heard of. Oxtails and something else. I would steer clear of that. You can't go wrong with rice, yams and fresh fruit though. I didn' t know there were african restaurants. not trying to be disrespectful but I thought there was a food problem in africa. sad that so many are starving yet there are restaurants selling african food.