Tag Archives: West African

Bravo African Restaurant

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Instagram Post 3/1/2019

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Some months ago, a group of us led by the redoubtable Dave Cook of eatingintranslation.com fame joined in a West African food crawl through the Bronx stopping at Bravo African Restaurant, 1473 Westchester Ave in Soundview, for these two Senegalese dishes.

[1] The first, Ceebu Yapp (you might see thiebou yapp), literally rice with meat, in this case grilled lamb, is a classic dish served here with an oniony gravy over a bed of broken rice, all the better to drink up the juices. Was it a coincidence that the three most colorful items on the platter, green bell pepper, yellow corn, and red scotch bonnet just happen to match the colors of the 🇸🇳 Senegalese flag?

[2] So many names for this hearty West African staple: Mafé (or maafe or maffe) is peanut (or peanut butter or groundnut) stew (or soup depending upon its viscosity) otherwise known as sauce d’arachide, tigadèguèna or domoda (depending upon your whereabouts). Its tomato base was underpinned with beef, carrots and potatoes and, to my palate, bore a striking resemblance to another West African favorite, palm nut soup, but peanutty for sure. The spice level can vary from one recipe to the next, but by any name it’s always a crowd pleaser!
 
 

B&D Halal Restaurant

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Instagram Post 12/27/2018

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B&D Halal Restaurant at 163B W 29th St in Manhattan is a gem. Specializing in West African food, they offer an extensive variety of delicious choices in a steam table format, always the perfect opportunity to taste a bit of a multitude of goodies. You’ll find rice dishes like chebu jen and jollof rice, stews based on okra, peanut, cassava leaf and potato leaf, and a wide variety of hearty preparations featuring goat, lamb, chicken, and fish along with a separate salad bar – more than anyone could sample in a single visit.

[1] Sauces/stews over a starch are a hallmark of West African cooking. This plate (top left moving clockwise) shows okra sauce with an errant zesty beef meatball, okra powder sauce, cassava leaf stew over rice, and peanut sauce over fonio. (By rights, each sauce should accompany a starch.) My sweet, earthy bouye drink (made from baobab fruit) and potent ginger beer (not shown) were righteous beverages.

[2] This admittedly overcrowded plate shows the aforementioned chebu jen (broken rice in a tomatoey sauce to which you add some close-at-hand fish), goat, jollof rice, lamb dibi (grilled lamb) and several chicken and fish selections. And all this was at lunchtime! Different options (including fufu) materialize at dinnertime.

Pro Tip: Go a little after 12pm. That’s when the lunchtime crowd peaks, but it’s also when many more items become available.
 
 

Accra Restaurant

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When I write about restaurants on Instagram, they’re usually brief takes accompanied by a photo or two. (You can see my feed right here on ethnojunkie.com by selecting the “Instagram” category from my home page – no signup required.) But folks sometimes ask for more extensive reviews and photos, so in response, here’s a comprehensive report on one of my favorites.

Ever had Ghanaian cuisine? Want to try some of the best you’ll ever have? Then look no further than Accra Restaurant, 2065 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd, where a group of us converged on a recent jaunt to Harlem. Accra is named for Ghana’s capital and although Senegalese food is a bit easier to find in this neighborhood, we had set out for a Ghanaian feast and this steamtable spot provided just what we were after. Thanks to their excellent food and warm hospitality, it was an extraordinary experience. The story of our first visit is the stuff of which fantasies are made and perhaps I’ll post the details of it soon, but in the meantime, have a look at some of the extraordinary dishes we tried.

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Suya

Skewered spicy grilled beef, served in slices, best known as a delicious street food.

Fried Turkey Tail

This is Halal cuisine, so don’t expect any pork on your fork, but you’ll forget about ribs when you try these. Known to some as the pope’s nose, I call it the part that goes over the fence last. Smoky, juicy, delicious and often overlooked by those who don’t know better! 😉

Plantain Fufu and Palmnut Soup

Pinch off a hunk of the starch with your fingers, dip it in the delectable soup and enjoy. One of my favorite starch/soup combinations, but they’re all great here.

Emo-Tuwoo and Peanut Soup with Goat

I’ve seen many spellings for this starch including emotuo and omotuo; orthography aside, it’s a compressed rice ball that goes perfectly with peanut soup. Sounds good, right? Tasted even better!

Dibi and Acheke

Served with remarkable mustard onions. Dibi is roasted meat, in this case lamb, sliced into chunks, and often part of the street food scene; the mustard component is a significant ingredient in the recipe. Acheke (you might see it as attiéké) is grated cassava with a texture similar to couscous.

Guinea Fowl (Akonfem)

The meat is a little leaner than chicken and the flavor is more pronounced. It was topped with peanut powder, traditionally a blend of peanuts and chili powder along with spices like ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.

Eba with Egushi

So many fufus, so little time, and I admit to liking them all. In contrast to smooth, pounded cassava fufu, firmer eba has tiny flecks of gari (dried grated cassava) in it and is a little tart or sour tasting. Perfect with egushi (you might see egusi), a delicious soup made from ground melon/pumpkin/squash/gourd seeds.

Banku with Baked Tilapia

Banku is fermented corn or corn + cassava dough, a little sticky, and is a typical partner for baked tilapia and other fish dishes.

Jollof Rice with Chicken

Accra’s jollof rice, the widely celebrated and beloved tomato-based West African triumph and a source of both pride and dispute among African nations as to whose version is best, was delicious as was the chicken.

Pounded Yam Fufu and Okra

This time, the fufu is yam rather than cassava; different but equally tasty. The okra soup is delicious although mucilaginous – an acquired taste, or perhaps an acquired texture. Generally my advice to those who are new to okra soup is to try to think past the consistency and just focus on the wonderful flavor!

Wakey with Fried Whiting and Gari

Wakey (you might see waakye and other spellings but the pronunciation is wah-chay – rhymes with watch-way) is Ghana’s culinary claim to fame; similar to West Indian rice and peas, it’s made with rice and black eyed peas or cowpeas. The characteristic reddish-purplish-brown color can come from dried red sorghum leaves, millet leaves, or even baking soda. Gari is dried, ground cassava, a little like Brazilian manioc, but unique. And tasty fried whiting – what’s not to like?!

Yam Porridge

The last time we went, Ayesha, the owner, told me that this dish was new on the menu and recommended that we try it. I am so glad we did!

Yam Porridge (aka asaro) is not what some customarily think of as porridge, and those are not the kind of yams some think of as Thanksgiving fare (those are actually sweet potatoes); these yams are seasoned and cooked down so there is a little mashed yam “soup” and some larger tender chunks. Topped with a sauce made from smoked turkey, onion, and tomato in red palm oil, it was another winner. If this isn’t comfort food, I don’t know what is!
 
 
And two photos from a subsequent lunchtime visit:

Fried Whiting with Jollof Rice

Chicken with Waakye

PS: Get some of their amazing homemade ginger beer when you go! Non-carbonated, non-alcoholic, unique and delicious.
 
 
Accra Restaurant is located at 2065 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd, Manhattan.
 
 

Golody Halal Buffet

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Instagram Post 9/3/2018

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Golody Halal Buffet recently opened at 222 1st Avenue in Manhattan. Featuring West African and Mediterranean cuisine, it’s steam table, self-serve style and their descriptions of what I selected were simple: “Lamb Chops, Chicken, Spicy Chicken, Athieke with Peanut Butter Sauce, Cassava Leaves”. Timing is everything and ours was less than stellar; we were told to come back in two hours and there would be more choices. Ah well, maybe another day. Note that although the signage reads “All You Can Eat”, it’s pay by the pound.
 
 

Allerton Avenue International Food Festival

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Instagram Post 8/25/2018

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Scenes from the Allerton Avenue International Food Festival in the Bronx.

It was a treat to see Mama G African Kitchen at the festival. I’ve written about one of their brick and mortar restaurants (3650A White Plains Road in the Bronx) here and here so I don’t need to repeat how much I like their food; I’ll just show you what we got:

Waakye – you may see variant spellings but the pronunciation is wah-chay (rhymes with watch-way) and it’s Ghana’s culinary claim to fame. Similar to West Indian rice and peas, it’s made with rice and black eyed peas or cowpeas; the characteristic reddish-purplish-brown color can come from dried red sorghum leaves, millet leaves, or even baking soda. Yellow gari (ground cassava) on the side.

Jollof rice – There’s a keen rivalry among West African countries over whose version is the best but tomato paste figures heavily into all of them.

Fried turkey (the part that goes over the fence last – yum!), plantain, and fried croaker submerged under spicy sauce.

Delicious!
 
 

Mama G African Kitchen

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Bronx food needs more love, so here’s a nod in that direction! Recently, a group of us who were craving Ghanaian food went to Mama G African Kitchen at 3650A White Plains Road for lunch and I’m so happy we did; the lighting didn’t do the chef’s skilled cooking justice, but fortunately my eyes were bigger than my camera so I enjoyed our meal immensely.

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Waakye – you may see variant spellings but the pronunciation is wah-chay (rhymes with watch-way) and it’s Ghana’s culinary claim to fame. Similar to West Indian rice and peas, it’s made with rice and black eyed peas or cowpeas; the characteristic reddish-purplish-brown color can come from dried red sorghum leaves, millet leaves, or even baking soda. It was paired with croaker plus spaghetti and gari (ground cassava). Shito, the sauce made from hot peppers, tomato, garlic, and fish, is on the side.


Pinch off a bit of starchy eba (which is made from gari) with your fingers and gather up some stew – here either the accompanying spinach or egusi (ground melon seeds) – the best way to enjoy West African cuisine!


Part of our first course: Grilled Red Snapper and Spicy Kebab.


Peanut Butter Soup (you might see it as Groundnut Soup/Stew). This bowl was home to both meat and fish but I didn’t catch the types. The starch that accompanied it was emotuo, a pressed ground rice ball (some would call it a dumpling) that was perfect with the soup; I’ve seen emotuo only in connection with Ghanaian cuisine.


Okra Stew with Banku. Banku is another West African staple starch. It’s most closely associated with Ghana and is distinguished by the fact that it’s one of the fermented varieties, in this case a blend of cassava and corn. It works like all West African doughy starches: pinch off a bit, dip it into the stew or soup and enjoy – really hands-on cuisine! Okra stew can vary from somewhat mucilaginous to extremely mucilaginous, but either way it’s relentless in that regard. It may be an acquired taste, or more accurately, an acquired texture, but give it a chance before you pass judgment; you might be surprised!
 
 
Note that there’s another location of Mama G African Kitchen at 1322A Gun Hill Road, also in the Bronx.
 
 

Dakwa

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Instagram Post 6/26/2018

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I may have a found new favorite West African sweet snack: Dakwa. A popular treat in Ghana 🇬🇭 and Togo 🇹🇬, it goes by spellings and names that run the alphabetical gamut from Adaakwa to Zowè. Fortunately, I had only to travel to New Harlem Halal Meat on 2142 Frederick Douglass Blvd at 116th St in Manhattan to spot these treasures tucked away in a large plastic jar perched on the cashier’s counter (see second photo).

Made from ground roasted corn flour and peanuts, spiked with cloves, ginger, chili powder, sugar and a little salt, tightly compressed into 2½ inch balls with a measure of peanut oil to stick it together, its texture is similar to Middle Eastern halvah, perhaps a little stiffer. The balls come tightly bound in plastic wrap; the first photo shows one broken apart for closer examination, but mainly for easier eating. 😉

Sweet, spicy, salty, zowie!
 
 

Pikine

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Instagram Post 6/19/2018

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Pikine, a West African restaurant at 243 West 116th St in Manhattan is definitely worth a visit, particularly if you’re unfamiliar with Senegalese food. Portions are large (suitable for two, I’d say) but be forewarned that oftentimes many dishes are unavailable, sometimes because they’re served only on certain days of the week (typical for many African restaurants) but sometimes just because the kitchen reports that they’re out.

We ordered Senegal’s national dish, Thiebou Djeun – spellings vary widely but pronunciation is close to Cheh-boo Jen – and to call it rice and fish is an understatement even though the words translate as rice and fish. It’s made from “broken rice” (easily found at nearby African markets) and if you look closely you’ll see its short grains, but it begins its life as standard untruncated rice that breaks in the field or during processing or milling; the shards are sorted by size and are highly desirable since they cook faster and absorb flavors more readily than whole grains. The rice, combined with chopped onion and garlic, is cooked with tomato paste that lends its deep red color and rich flavor, plus okra, carrots, cabbage (your vegetables may vary) and perfectly seasoned fish.

Our second dish was Maffe (often spelled Mafé), lamb stew with vegetables in a tomato/peanut butter sauce, another Senegalese classic that’s not to be missed.
 
 

West African Home Cookin’

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I’ve been getting into cooking West African cuisine lately. Here’s my rendition of Palmnut Cream Stew with chicken, smoked dried fish, squash, plantain, tomato and kale. That’s fufu (pounded yam) on the side. Turnip Greens with Peanut (not shown) rounded out the meal.
Palmnut Cream Stew
There are many variations on the theme of fufu; plantain, cassava, and cocoyam are relatively easy to find. If you’re shopping in a West African market, you’ll find fufu flour packaged in a box: just add a little water and a lot of elbow grease and your considerable efforts will be rewarded.
3 fufusGa KenkeyFanti Kenkey
I also experimented with fufu-like kenkey and banku, both made from corn. They differ significantly from fufu in that they’re fermented and almost a little too sour if you’re tasting them straight, but they harmonize perfectly with the smoked dried fish flavor of many of the regional dishes. You’ll see them in Ghanaian markets wrapped in plastic and ready to steam. I’ve spotted two varieties of kenkey, Ga and Fanti; the words describe two neighboring ethnic groups and the difference between the kenkeys was subtle: Ga came wrapped in a white corn husk and had a grainier texture than Fanti which was shrouded in a green corn husk and was stickier than Ga. Banku (no husk, just plastic) was a little less fermented and tasted somewhat smoky.

Thiakry
In keeping with the West African theme, dessert was thiakry, a sweet dish made from millet and yogurt or buttermilk or the like (I use both). My spin on it contains swirls of baobab fruit with peanut crème (which itself is the basis for another sweet dish called ngalakh). Thiakry is often served for breakfast or a snack, and “dessert”, as such, isn’t a feature of most African cuisines – it’s similar to China in that regard – but sweets do indeed make an appearance, just not necessarily at the end of a meal. As a matter of fact, an internet search turns up a number of recipes for thiakry (aka déguê) in which it’s described as a Senegalese dessert. In this case, I wanted to make something that would provide a sweet finish to a savory meal and whose flavor profile would be in complete contrast to the main dish.

Hungry for more? Check out the Home Cookin’ section of the site!