PLENTY MEAT......NO VEG PLEASE!

      

Happy belated New Year greetings, hope you had a fab Christmas.

Yes I know it's been a while and I actually have no excuse, I had planned to write a new year post but then I died.Yes you've read me right ‘I died’. In the aftermath of the Aussie flu that made the rounds this winter, I read somewhere that the test for whether one genuinely has a bout of flu is down to how one feels. If you feel like you have a flu…. you don't, that’s actually a mere cold you have!  If however you feel like you’re dying or been hit by a train then yes that’s the flu! So that’s it folk, you read it here first…I died. 

So now back to the photo at the top of this blog, if you're wondering what’s going on

sometime last year a restaurant “Ikoyi” opened in the Central London on it’s website the restaurant is described as:

‘A Chic space with decor that reflects the cuisine: a modern twist on authentic West African flavours’

 

When this restaurant opened, in Naija circles news started filtering through and as is often the case mainly from people who had not even visited the place! So most reviews were prefixed with ‘I heard the food there… ‘They say the food is… ‘Someone said the price is… ‘Yes the food tastes like Nigerian food but someone said it is not as you know it…'You can spend the money to do all your food shopping for the month..and so it went on. 

I recall last summer during the Nigerian Sports day event we attend yearly, a lady who had actually visited Ikoyi was giving us a review on her visit there but was cut short by a chap who said the food was too pricey, he had not even been there but he just ‘rubbished’ her experience! 

She ignored him and recommended the restaurant as a treat for one’s self and for the experience. I made note of it for my bucket list and thought yes this will be a Christmas treat for self followed by a Christmas blog about my experience. 

Much to my annoyance ‘the sis-in-law’ had the Ikoyi experience before me as she went with her 2 besties for her birthday in October. I asked her to send me all the pics and the menu, she also gave me blow by blow account of her outing and I was ever so tempted to blog about her experience, but I then thought that would not be real so decided to wait till I went myself.  She did diplomatically warn me "Sister please don't starve yourself before visiting this restaurant oh" 🙈

       

          Moi, Iya Beji (Remi) and Yemisi (The Naija Uncle)

Unfortunately Man proposes….. as the restaurant shut down over the Christmas period and did not open till the New Year…I lay blame at the foot of our friend for missing out on a pre-Xmas visit to Ikoyi as he did not arrived from Naija till 23rd Dec and that was the last day restaurant opened in the year. These Naija people and all their last minutes jumping on plane things!         

Anyway when ‘the friend’ arrived we agreed that we would visit restaurant on the first day it opened in the New Year. 

Me and my friend Iya Beji emerged from underground Piccadilly circus as agreed on this extremely cold and frosty afternoon and our Naija friend was waiting for us all kitted out like an eskimo (not really, joking!!!) for the occasion. We checked our maps to find restaurant was 3 minutes from station and headed straight there…in fact let me confess I don't know how to use maps thingy's, it was our Naija friend that flipped out phone and led us to venue!

                  

                         Crab Jollof Rice

                        

                    

As we entered the restaurant our coats were taken off us and and hung in cloakroom area, we quickly to pull out our phones and remove our hat and gloves and stuff in pockets. We were then given a playing card (not those cloakroom numbered tickets) each to retrieve our coats later, mine was The Jack of hearts❤️

“Table for three?” we’re asked by the waiter as we are led to table near the window (good marketing strategy; 2 aunties and one uncle in the window for passing trade!)

                           

                               Pork, Hibiscus Miso and condiments
                             

                               

                          

Now folks I'm no restaurant critic so if you are expecting detailed description filled with adjectives about the interior of restaurant, textures, aroma and taste of food it just isn't happening, Trip Advisor is your friend!

As true Nigerians, for me and my buddies the ultimate question was whether the food was sweet or not. Let the photo’s do the talking!

A friend of mine may choose to call this my style of writing lazy, as she has a knack for description and the use of adjectives, she often goes on about a wonderful English teacher who taught her back in the day. The lady, she said, had no room for laziness in creative writing and stated that one should be able to draw people into the narrative. This my friend often displays her skills in her play  

on words, for example rather than simply say ‘Ola you are stingy’ she would say “Ola it is easier for a ‘pregnant' camel to pass through the ‘half blocked' eye of a ‘bent' needle than for you to pull out a pound from your pocket” Get the picture!

                         

                         

            Stone Bass Fish, Red Pepper & Kelp (aka Eja, Ata and kpekere)

                       

So we sit down and menus are handed to us, we’re asked what drinks we’d like and our Naija friend puts on his posh voice and says ‘Sparkling water for me please’ I eye him as I've never got the point of ordering sparkling water at restaurants. Sparkling water ko..sparkling water ni! Me and Iya Beji order their variation of a Naija chapman cocktail, for the life of me can't remember what the combination was, guava and something I think.  Neither did I remember to take a photo of the drinks menu. But our verdict of the drink was it was ‘sweet’ not sweet as in sugary but sweet as in lazy style of Naija writing I.e. ‘nice’ we liked it. No point in asking uncle his verdict on his sparkling water after all sparkling water is what it says on the bottle…sparkling water!!!

                        

                        

                              chapman

                             

We are handed the menu, we had planned to order different dishes to get the 360 degree experience, however for New Year menu we were restricted to only one starter of the day this was; Buttermilk Plaintain with Smoked Scotch Bonnet, that's the photo at top of blog post, personally I was expecting fried plaintain aka ‘dodo’ with ‘ata’ peppery sauce. We all tucked in ,it was ‘sweet’ i.e. lazy writing ‘sweet’ aka ‘nice’. I did not expect the plaintain to be dusted in red ‘crumbs’ or whatever they were. I must say it was nicely presented,served hot, delicious and spicy. 

Main course was a choice between: 

Stone Bass fish, Red Pepper and Kelp 

Pork, Hibsicus Miso and Condiments and 

January Cabbage Egusi

We quickly ruled out the January Cabbage Egusi being the meat lovers we are!

We then order the larger portion of The Crab Jollof rice to eat with the main courses. 

                          

The jollof is served covered with leaves, they must have been edible (maybe the gardener’s in the house can help us identify!). On spotting the portion size we fear for our large bellies and quickly order another. The crab was crumbled on topped of the rice with a sauce and also tasted ‘sweet’

Simplified, fish dish as you can see from the photo’s sits on top of a sauce surrounded by those 3 chip-like ‘kelp’? Likewise very ‘sweet’. 

Pork dish was lovely and the way it was presented reminded us of Suya, you can tell I'm bored now all this food analysis is too much for me. 

Summary is we had a good time and jokes apart the food is delicious and I would recommend a visit there. Is it typical Naija food? I would say no. 

Now for the amusing part even though we had heard that Ikoyi's desserts were also ‘sweet’ we decided to give them a skip as we did not fancy sound of ‘Cashew Ice cream’ or ‘Avocado baobab’ we were craving traditional warm dessert, so after washing the plates at Ikoyi for 1 week to set off our £160 bill 👀 we casually strolled down to Garfunkel’s restaurant at Leicester Square for dessert. The weather was freezing I cannot emphasis enough! As waiter approached us with menu with our teeth chattering we all chorused ‘Dessert menu only please’. Iya beji and myself “Apple crumble with custard and cup of hot chocolate thank you” Naija Uncle ‘Ermm..can I have a sticky toffee pudding with custard please’ and yes and he orders the sparkling water again 🙄  

    Our Puddings at Garkunkel's

I’m done, those people doing reviews are trying oh!!

What's your interesting eating experience?

On that note let’s Thank God It’s Friday, have a great weekend. 

💅🏾

If we’re not meant to have late night snacks…why is there a light in the fridge? 👀