Slightly rambling

Le Loft

The weekend starts at 1.30pm on a Friday Chez Jiffler, and usually involves a long and leisurely lunch.

I'd recommend Le Loft for a long and leisurely lunch. A newish opening in Plateau, Le Loft is a sophisticated indoor bar/salon du the/restaurant which is trying to please everyone, and may very well end up succeeding.

Inside is all dark furnishings and sleek seating, something in between the average Malmaison lobby and a Soho restaurant circa 1998. I can imagine it going down well with certain Dakar cliques once the sun sets. Daytime though, it's pretty calm. I felt a bit underdressed on Friday afternoon though, wearing a free t-shirt advertising the Badger brewery in Dorset and trousers with a ten-pence sized hole just below the right buttock.

After being greeted and shown to our table by charming and efficient staff, I braced myself for some sort of fine dining monstrosity and started to sharpen my pencils for a bruising rant on Dakar Restaurant Reviews. But what is this? Club Sandwiches? Croque Madames? Galettes? All at the kind of prices that wouldn't look out of place at Les Ambassades... well well.

A basket of decent bread came with decent butter, and the usual ketchup-piment-moutarde trio augmented by olive oil and balsamic vinegar. There must be a catch here right? The drinks were a bit on the pricey side, maybe that's it.

Mrs Jiffler went for a chicken quesadilla and I tested out the club sandwich (boring, yes, but I was on duty), but before all that, we were swiftly presented with a plate of little round deep fried fish things and home made tartare sauce.

"They get extra points for tartare sauce" reckoned Mrs Jiffler.

"Shut up and eat your little fish things"

Well I can't have her doing these reviews for me.

Meals arrived, on massive plates, with an explosion of salad. Blimey. Are you sure the prices on the menu are right? I even had to leave some chips, not because they were bad chips, but because the portion was so large and I'd stuffed my chops on bread and the little fish things beforehand. The quesadilla seemed to disappear quickly though, and I only got a chance to sample the guacamole (very good), and run my finger around the bottom of the sour cream bowl (also good).

I'm told there is also a more expensive a la carte menu "under development" as well, which currently features the usual meaty suspects, with a brief, and possibly pointless meander into Mexican territory. It might be worth a punt though. Let me know.

So let's get this straight; efficient service, smart decor, massive portions, good freebies, very reasonable price.

See you there next Friday.

Le Loft
Sorry, I forgot to pick up a card, but it's on Rue Amadou Assane Ndoye, number 62 or 63 I think. You can't miss it, it's west off the Place de L'Independance.

Small Fish.

Histoires des Gourmandises
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop
Point E
Tel: 33 824 10 20 Open 7 days 12 - 2.30pm, 6.30pm to 12.30am

I seem to have got into the habit of occasional boozy lunches with a fellow Dakarite who "works from home". Alas, she will be departing these shores to move in nextdoor to Barack Obama in a few weeks, so I'm looking for boozy lunch volunteers.

In the evenings, Histoire des Gourmandise on Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop aims for the fine dining market. I came here to eat one evening after the Queen's Birthday Party, but to be honest I was too pissed to notice if the food was any good. Their lunchtime fixed menu is a simpler affair at 6000 FCfa for three courses.

A starter of nems with a wee bit of salad is unremarkable, but satisfying enough. Something to pick at while the wine warms up I guess. Given the choice between spag bol and fish for our mains we sensibly went for the fish, which was an undersized bream (notice how fish are getting smaller in Dakar, this is not a good thing for gourmets or environmentalists) served with perky side of green beans in garlic. Unremarkable again. An apricot tart seemed home-made rather than shop bought, but would have benefited from a drop of cream, or perhaps some creme anglaise.

I've no grumbles about Histoire des Gourmandise, and it is a nice environment in which to sit for a couple of hours, whiling away the afternoon with a couple of bottles of Beaujolais, but the food is better, and more creative around the corner at the ecole gastronomique.

Shangri-la
Rue 1
Point E

It looks so inviting from the outside, what with the red Chinese handing lamps and everything. Things take a downward turn at the entrance though, when you take in the bare walls, blaring TV, Donald Duck sticker, and fishy smell.

I'm guessing that this is where the Chinese community come for authentic Chinese takeaway. The menu reads like the contents of a butcher's dustbin, with all the nobbly bits you'd rather not eat. Feet feature heavily, as does a bizarre sounding dish involving feathers.

You can sit down and eat, as long as you don't mind warm flag and surprised waiting staff bungling around while the Chinese owners smoke and play mah-jong behind the bar. I wouldn't recommend it though. While our stir-fried greens were suitably earthy and garlicy, the MSG content of the beef with mushrooms was high enough to have a mildly hallucinogenic effect. Stir fried noodles were actually overcooked spaghetti with a few bits in from the bottom of the fridge thrown in. Spaghetti. Not noodles. As readers of Experimental Jifflings will know, this is the third Chinese restaurant disaster I've had in 2009. Surely my luck will change...

Foody news:
Casino in Almadies and Plateau both seem to be doing reasonably priced pre-packed pigeons, ducks and (overpriced) rabbits at the moment. I've no idea whether they have new suppliers or this is just a passing phase. Pigeons make an OK mid-week supper though...

Another New(ish) Opening

Time's Cafe
That apostrophe is annoying isn't it. A shame as they've got pretty much everything else right. Time's Cafe (how annoying....) is decked out in a retro American diner style and serves up a smart selection of flavoured coffees, hot and cold chocolates, pizzas, omelettes, sandwiches, burgers, snacks and ice cream.

Mrs Jiffler tries the 'Midnight Fever' chilled coffee - a decadent mix of espresso, milk, toffee, banana and chocolate. Foodwise we both opt for manakish (I'm slowly developing an addiction to these) as a mid-Saturday-morning snack, but I wish I'd had room to try one of the burgers. Is there anywhere in Dakar where you can get a really decent burger? The ones I buy from Le Palace on Thursday nights/Friday mornings when I'm three sheets to the wind are truly vile.

I'd recommend popping into Time's cafe for a coffee next time you're in Plateau and the hustle and bustle is getting you down.

Time's Cafe
27 Avenue Roume, Plateau.
tel: 33 821 21 68
Open 7 days a week, 7am to 11pm
Delivery service starting mid-February.

P.S
I'm back from Central Asia now, if you're interested, you can read about what I ate there on Experimental Jifflings.

Transcendental Tuna Salad

Fuji
19 Rue Victor Hugo (next to Ozio), Plateau.
Tel: 33 821600, or 775 072270

Who in their right mind would go into a sushi restaurant and order something as boring as 'Spicy tuna salad'? It sounds like something you'd make on a Wednesday evening, using a tin of tuna and the bits of vegetable detritus from the bottom of the salad tray. In a sushi restaurant we want maki and miso, unagi and a touch of umami, not boring old Wednesday tuna salad. Right?

Not so at Fuji, Dakar's latest sushi offering. Here the Tuna Salad is one of those dishes that makes your hair stand on end from the very first bite. Halfway through the plate and you're off your face on happy-hormones, thinking about ordering another, or maybe two more. Trust me, this is no mere salad, this is tuna spun into silk, sweet seaweed seduction.

At long last, sushi, sashimi, and maki dishes to really get excited about. The next time some pseud cracks on about how wonderful the second-rate sushi is at La Fourchette or Cozy you can send them to Fuji for an education.

Service here is a delight as well - unhurried and without the usual French pretentions. The atmosphere is slick and modern, a bit quiet early doors, but warming as the restaurant fills up with a good mix of customers and the music of human voices.

Two can eat here for 50,000Fcfa as long as you don't go mad with the winelist. The spicy tuna salad costs 8,000Fcfa and is worth every franc.

Plateau Part Deux

Some more places to enjoy / avoid downtown.

La Croix du Sud, 20 Avenue Albert Sarraut, Plateau
Like walking into a Blackpool bed and breakfast on the weekend of a dogging convention, you can almost feel the middle-aged suburban sleaze dripping down the walls. Shrivelled expat divorcees share Calvados with rotund drunks. The restaurant is alright, but half an hour in the bar was enough to put me off going near there again.

Recommended:

• If you're into swinging.

Avoid:

• The drunken, lecherous men and women.

La Forchette, 4 rue Parent, Plateau
Upmarket, stylish, and popular with the French and Lebanese contingent. Service is sharp, but food can be inconsistent. Take a fat wallet, and don't miss the desserts.

Recommended:

• There is a weekday lunchtime deal - 6,000 CFA for two courses. Great value.
• Puds - the Roti Chocolat is divine, and the cheeky Creme Brulee en coque is as smooth as silk

Avoid:

• It gets pretty smoky

Chez Loutcha, 101 Rue Moussa Diop, Plateau
Cape verdean, Senegalese and European food. A menu like a telephone directory, and portions that could feed a sasquatch. Chez Loutcha is just grubby and disorganised enough for visiting foreigners to rave about, as they feel like they've had some sort of 'African experience'. On the other hand its just clean and organised enough to fleece the toubabs with large portions of poor quality food.

Recommended:

• Portions are large. You won't go hungry.

Avoid:

• The so called Cape Verdean dishes - large quantities of beans with gag inducing chunks of stale fat.

Le Seoul, 75 rue Amadou Assane Ndoye, Plateau
Bizarre Korean / karaoke joint. Don't feel embarassed about singing, as you'll be the only customers, despite the restaurant being a tastefully decorated quiet haven in Plateau. Food choice is buffet, or nothing. At least its a decent buffet. For a more detailed review, click here.

Recommended:
A decent enough buffet with a bit of sushi and a few different flavours
Bizarrely enough, Some of Radiohead's twitchier moments on the karaoke machine
Private room for karaoke

Avoid:
Restaurant kicks out at 11pm.
Spooky feeling that the restaurant is a cover for something more sinister...

Fast food coming up next. And there should be an option to subscribe to the blog appearing to the right of the text...

Plateau Part 1

Here are a few upmarket places in the busier part of town.

Mezzo, 26 Rue Jules Ferry, Plateau
Smart. Leather sofas, antipasti, trip-hop on the stereo... Well French trip-hop, which is a pretty dire facsimile. Anyhow, this place is cool, and modern, but not expensive or rammed to the gills with teenagers with big hair, oversized sunglasses, and DOLCE & GABBANA screaming from every conceivable orifice. The atmosphere is more Italian families, courting couples, and folks warming up for a night on the tiles.

Recommended:

• Great pizzas. Possibly the best in town.
• Pasta is good too...
• The salty chocolate cake is surprisingly ace.

Avoid:

• Music gets a bit loud later on.

Farid, 51 Rue Vincens, Plateau
Slick, high end Lebanese food, this is one of my top picks in Dakar. A varied menu with fantastic mezze. Frequented by Lebanese for celebrations - I witnessed an engagement party where a whole roast sheep was brought out (with a little paper hat on its head) by a rotund chef. The party then enjoyed dancing in a circle around the sheep. Thats my kind of party.

Recommended:

• The mezze
• Reasonable wines
• Can cater for parties

Avoid:

• It can get a bit dark on the street outside the restaurant. Take care.

Cafe de Rome, 32 Bld de la Republique, Plateau
This is a favourite with the Dakar glitterati according to some. There is a fancy airconditioned restaurant, or a more laid back terrace. the Italian food is unremarkable, with a bit of a microwaved vibe.

Recommended:

• To see or be seen, if that's your thing.
• Nice terrace

Avoid:

• The food isn't very interesting, and it's a bit pricey

Le Toukouleur, 122 Rue Moussa Diop, Plateau
Warm terracotta walls and Mediterranean vibes make this a relaxing haven in Plateau. Upmarket prices for high quality creative cooking.

Recommended:

• Very willing to put together something interesting for vegetarians if you ask

Avoid:

• Red wine comes thoroughly chilled

Plateau Part 2 next week.

Culture and Cuisine in Plateau

Fancy a spot of culture with your food? Here are a few spots in Plateau for when getting drunk is not necessarily the main aim of the evening.

Le Bidew Bi at L'Institute Francais Leopold Sedar Senghor (aka the CCF), 89 rue Joseph T. Gomis, Plateau.
A nice semi-outdoor space that hosts plays and concerts (sometimes attracting big stars from West Africa), has a decent menu, laidback social atmosphere, and quality artists workshops to browse. http://www.institutfr-dakar.org/

Recommended:

• Great fruit juices
• Decent salads

Avoid:

• Sometimes it's randomly booked for private functions, so call ahead.
• The kitchen has often run out of your first choice, and your second choice.

Kadjinol station Avenue Albert Sarrault X Salva, Plateau.
A cinema / bar / restaurant all in one. Pull up a sofa and watch arthouse flicks with a beer in hand. Movies are often shown in their original English or Spanish verision, with French subtitles. They'll even take requests if there is a particular film that you've missed. http://www.kadjinol-edu.com/

Recommended:

• The food isn't bad, some Thai bits and bobs and the odd brochette.
• Films come free

Avoid:

• You pay a premium on food and beer, which pays for the film
• You may be the only party in the place.

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Since my previous post about Point E, I've been enjoying a few drinks at a cosy car called 'Le Celtic' in Point E. You can find it on an un-named (to the best of my knowledge) avenue, one street east of Rue 5/Birago Diop. I guess it would by Rue 6, or 5-and-a-half.

The owner is part Irish, hence the Celtic, but its not an Irish pub by any means. I haven't eaten there yet, but it seems popular. A bit of live music here and there, and pleasant outdoor seating (bring the insect repellent) makes it a decent place to go to wind down after work.

Apparently Lalibela has a new chef and is back on form, so a visit there in the next couple of weeks is on cards.