African restaurant.

So, the other weekend I went out for African food at this restaurant with a friend from my program as part of the same ethos of exploring little-visited-by-students restaurants in our part of the city, and it was honestly the best food I've had in like the past 3 years.

As for me, I had the "beef brouchette", which was spice-rubbed cubes of beef cooked medium well and put five-to-a-stick between alternating pieces of onion and red pepper, then grilled... The meal was five sticks, then a side of mixed vegetable couscous and an onion relish.

My friend had spice-rubbed red snapper, which was served whole on the plate and you had to pick the pieces of flesh off and then pick the bones out from between your teeth, and he had a side of fried plaintains, which were the best I'd ever tasted.

(He got the onion relish too.)

For drinks, I got hibiscus juice, and my friend got ginger juice. Dessert was sour cream with sugar and millet mixed in, like a pudding.

All in all, we each paid like $21, for really high quality food. The atmosphere was really nice, too - big high ceilings over two rooms, with cheaper african pictures on the walls and big fabric pieces covering the windows and pulled back by the doors and covering the tables, and a whole speaker set up booming West African music, and a display case with West African DVDs and CDs, and in the back his wife's clothing store (it was in one half of the current restaurant space, but then they blew out part of the wall when their restaurant started getting great reviews and lines were out the door).

The owner, who was Senegalese, sat down with us for a while at the beginning and end of the meal and did the whole kind of "I'm being a nice guy" schtick while he was trying to get something out of you... A Peace Corps worker who I had met in Ghana called it "the hustle", and said a lot of dumb people think Africans are always friendly, when like 80% of the time it's mostly the hustle.

Anyhow, the guy kept telling us how he had his restaurant for love, not for money, but he was trying to expand, and maybe when he got three restaurants, then he'd do it for money. He then gave us promotional cards to give out in our neighborhood and catering information for our department, both of which I was only too happy to take since his food is very good and reasonably priced.

He also ordered his nephew around, this big dumpy teenage Senegalese kid with a full beard, since all of them all Muslims... The women were in back cooking, and his daughter, this tall lanky girl with a huge Afro and a purple sleeveless denim outfit, was serving.

Afterwards, my friend said he found the guy a little patriarchal, especially how he was telling us that ginger juice is good for virility, and he drinks it every morning.

It's hard to believe the restaurant is right near all these liquor stores and convenience stores and stuff... I bet that's why only students with cars visit. I definitely want them to cater dept. functions, though. I hope the food isn't too spicy, and that they can do stuff for vegetarians.