![]() It was fantastic! Again, the staff could have swarmed around us making more money but, they just left us to it and in the end, we paid and left. When I mentioned this to the manager later, he said he had forgotten to get it from the fridge.ĪTMOSPHERE: Nice and clean although there could have been more Nigerian memorabilia. Obviously, the food was no longer as hot. I took the fork, one of my sisters took the spoon and my other sister had to wait for another 4 minutes. The food finally arrived, but the cutleries didn't! After asking and waiting for another 6 minutes or so, I had to go up to the counter to ask again. The waiter just gave us whatever we ordered and disappeared until we waved and waved to get their attention for something. This is very poor business sense and I hope they take note. Also, it would have been better to inform us that Tilapia was the only fish available on the night rather than assume we would like it - as it so happens, it is my least favourite fish and my sister who had never tasted it before hated it! Many items were on the menu but not available on the SATURDAY night e.g Efo riro, Asaro, snail etc.which was a real shame and very disappointing. My sister's dodo and fish was big and pretty but bland and The pepper soup and moi moi were definitely not authentic or special. THE FOOD: Edible but in no way exciting soups – Ogbono and Abula. We were sat next to the toilet area and asked to be moved! The toilets were awful, cold and freezing! ![]() I had been to the original Buka 10 years ago – the reason why I recommended it to my sisters. The manager had not told me this twice before when I had phoned. I could manage just a few spoonfuls, but I haven’t had a sniffle since.ĩ46 Fulton Street (Cambridge Place), Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, (347) 763-0619, īEST DISHES Moi moi, akara, suya, goat pepper soup, fresh ginger juice.OVERALL: I walked right passed it in the heavy rain because it's name has been changed to Faze2 or so. ![]() It is immediately clear why this soup is on Lonely Planet’s Top 10 list of the world’s hottest foods.Īccording to the Nigerian gypsy-cab driver who dropped me off at the restaurant, it makes you invincible. In the pepper soup ($9 with goat, $10 with fish), habañeros are strewn with abandon, defiantly, almost dementedly. Still, it is worth braving the more uncompromising items on the menu. Best of all is moi moi ($5), a steamed honey bean cake, fiery and crumbly.Īmong the entrees, steak ($19) and whole grilled tilapia ($15) are safe havens in an uncertain sea. Likewise paper-thin slices of grilled beef dusted with suya ($5), a slow-burn spice mix proprietary to Nigeria whose dominant notes are groundnuts and cayenne. I know of no culture in which crispy fried things are not treasured, and akara ($5), black-eyed-pea fritters, are a delight. (How an ingredient from northern Europe made its way to Nigeria no one at the restaurant was able to explain.) In conjunction with ground ogbono pods, it produces a taste oddly - and not entirely pleasantly - like Parmesan.īut, really, you needn’t be adventurous to dine here. More challenging is the devastatingly sour eba, a kind of fufu made from fermented ground cassava.Ī common ingredient in the accompanying sauces ($3 each) is Norwegian stockfish, whitefish dried by sun and wind rather than cured with salt. Pounded-yam fufu looks comfortingly like mashed potatoes but has little taste on its own, which works well with the hearty goat stew ($9). On his Twitter feed, he mixes announcements of which bands will be playing at Buka that weekend with news updates from Nigeria. Mashood, who doubles as the chef, grew up in Lagos, where he learned to cook from his aunts. You may be eating fufu - the thick paste made of yam or cassava that is a West African staple - but you’re doing so on formal high-backed chairs with cushioned armrests. A floor-to-ceiling bookshelf is stocked with glossy art tomes and diasporan newspapers with ads for delicacies like burnt goat’s head. In the back, the feel is of a vast drawing room, with tables flung far apart. Fresh liquefied ginger ($4) - “juice” hardly does it justice - is a sock in the jaw. There is palm wine ($4) too, sweet with a yeasty finish, and Malta Guinness ($5), a nonalcoholic malt beverage brewed in Nigeria that smells like pumpernickel still baking in the oven. Upfront is a long wooden bar where you can get a Chapman ($5), a fizzy Nigerian cocktail that includes Sprite, orange Fanta, Angostura bitters, and dashes of lemon, lime, grapefruit and (surely a Brooklyn innovation?) verbena. Victorian details - a floral couch, an oil painting in a gilded frame, a chandelier - are juxtaposed with gritty exposed brick. The owners, Lookman Mashood and Nat Goldberg, have transformed a former law office on a dingy stretch of Fulton Street into an airy, inviting space.
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