Old Favourite

I've always been fond of La Terrasse de Ouakam. There seems to be a bit of commitment in the kitchen - to strong French cooking and quality ingredients. Unfortunately it had often been let down by odd imperfections. Prawn shells buried in your prawn and avocado cocktail and that sort of thing.

It's been a while since I last went, and I've had a few good reports since the start of the year, so decided to gather together a couple of willing sybarites for a proper dinner. A proper grown-ups dinner where you expect to roll, sated and drunk from the table having dined leisurely and long.

Service is from an old pal from La Fiesta, who keeps things nicely paced, and even manages not to annoy me when topping up the wine. The man clearly has a gift. Our sharpeners come swiftly accompanied by soft cheesy feuillette reminiscent of Greek bourekaki.

Outside on the terrace (inside is a little gloomy, despite the boutique stylings) the extensive menu is displayed on a huge whiteboard, with odd specials hiding on smaller blackboards among the foliage. Normally I'd worry about such a long menu, but since it changes according to what is in (pork, duck and rabbit at the moment), the usual rules don't apply.

Snails come swimming in a creamy, buttery sauce which might otherwise be overwhelmlngly rich were it not for the hint of tarragon lending a licorice lightness to it. Deep fried goats cheese with poached pears is also lighter than expected, with the fluffy chevre melting deliciously on the tongue. My carpaccio of smoked magret comes in a bright and generous portion with a dollop of fig jam. On the plate, the carpaccio is odourless, but then when each slice hits your palette there is a gentle Double-Gloucester style whiff of the farmyard, followed quickly by a mild smokiness which doesn't overpower the duck.

Compared with the fist-sized lumps of succulent suckling pig on my companions' plates, my coq au vin looks like a meagre portion. The sauce is a rich reduction though, and the chicken tender and full of flavour - as fine an example of the dish as I've ever hard. The suckling pig is something else though, stuffed with mushrooms and positively radiating piggy goodness. Sides of mashed potato have a few disappointing lumps and bumps, which only goes to prove the chef's French cooking credentials. Why is it that the French can't do mashed potatoes properly?

Stuffed to the gills, we pass on pudding. Our bill, including two bottles of a very appley Muscadet, a couple of Gazelles, gin and tonic, coffees, a tip, and a snifter of Cognac comes to about 20,000FCfa a head. Not bad at all for such a grown up feast.

La Terrasse de Ouakam
31, route de Ouakam
Tel: 33 820 74 07
Open 7 days, 9.30am to 12.30am

A Sausage to India

Sure you can get curry in Dakar, but it usually an insipid Frenchified version, mildly spiced and served with - Cyril Fielding-esque - pasta.

There are two Indian restaurants proper in Dakar, the recently re-opened Zaika, and Indiana:

Indiana
There isn't much interest in the lunchtime buffet, probably due to Ramadan, so our table of five has the run of the restaurant. 5,000 FCfa gets you half a dozen average curries, cooked on the bone, and an assortment of slightly spongy deep-fried pakora. Roti are pretty good though, and service is friendly. You should see the state of their napkins though - you wound't use them to wipe the floor.

Not bad, for a cheapish buffet lunch, but not somewhere I'd rush to make a booking.

Adjoining the restaurant is a small shop selling spices and a few indian products. It's slightly cheaper than Haldiram's, and sells some of the harder to find items like mustard seeds.

Zaika
After a long wait - it must be over 18 months - Zaika has finally re-opened. I'm sure what took so long to be honest, as the refurbishments are barely noticable, and the place looks like it could do with, er, a bit of a refit. The toilets are somewhat nearer to the restaurant than before, so no need to take your hiking boots anymore.

Never mind. Mango lassi is inconsistent - a little better the second time round, while curries are about the average UK bottom end of the high street standard. I've had better biriyani elsewhere, although the tandoori chicken and fish come up to scratch. Samosas come shaped like cornish pasties, and are a bit heavy, but otherwise OK.

Of the two, Zaika is the better in terms of quality of food, and cleanliness of table linen. Don't expect too much from Zaika, but when you've been without a proper curry for a while, it might just satisfy the craving.

Radisson Blu

How do we pronounce this exactly? Is it blu as in bleu, or blur, or bleurgh?

Blu looks nice enough, all slaty coloured tiles and impressive thingies. The atrium is an eyecatching surprise as you enter the hotel from the top down, all hanging bits of fibre-optic (clearly inspired by the power lines outside my house) and fancy ikea lamps. Poolside is impressive too, with a dark blue (blu?) infinity pool that is already proving popular with Lebanese teenagers as a high profile heavy petting spot.

It has three sort of restaurants. Perhaps three menus is a more appropriate description. The flagship is the Filini Italian restaurant, the kind of blanded out upmarket restaurant you can find in five-star joints anywhere in the world. There is a more generic international menu served poolside, or you can sit indoors in some sort of weird corridor arrangement and tuck into club sandwiches and chicken wings.

The menu at Fillini's actually looks promising. There is none of the tedious pasta-pizza-steaknchips stuff one might normally expect, instead fillini's goes gently off piste with some interesting seafood options. The option is there for those who want the fully orchestrated multi-course Italian style blowout, but that would require both a thick waist and a thicker wallet.

Breads - onion foccacia, brown sliced, and grissini - are very good indeed, and I hope the in-house bakery will open to the public sometime soon. Mixed meat and vegetable antipasti are reasonable, with green beans in mint proving to be the star player. Pizzas are pretty good, but double the price of equally fine pizzas elsewhere in town.

Mrs Jiffler's risotto comes stacked with juicy prawns and a decent saffron punch, but tell tale white spots on the rice give away hasty cooking - surprising given the 40 minute wait in an almost empty restaurant.

Over at the poolside bar they knock out a very fine hamburger indeed. Cooked rare as requested and served with a robust, no-nonsense, toasted sesame bun. The burgers come with those little jarred condiments that they serve at every upmarket hotel in the tropics. The sort that visiting mothers of the Road to Wigan Pier generation like to slip into their handbags for later. Barracuda steak is tasty too, despite being hidden under a fizzy green salad toupe studded with the occasional shock anchovy nugget.

If I were to judge the Radisson on the quality of its food alone then things would be reasonably positive. You get decent food at a five-star price, what else should one expect? Well, one would expect decent coffee for 3,000FCfa, not insipid frothless cappuccino. At 7,000FCfa a pop I'd expect properly mixed cocktails made from quality spirits and fresh fruits. Most of all I'd expect a decent. Even after a couple of months to settle down the staff are not co-ordinated, customers have to play musical chairs, drinks don't arrive, bills don't arrive, change doesn't arrive... Little jars of mustard and piment and starched napkins don't make a five star hotel restaurant.

You can enjoy the pool for 10,000 FCfa/day
Weekend poolside + buffet is 28,000 FCfa

Radisson Blu Hotel, Dakar
Route de la Corniche ouest

Tel: +221 33 869 33 33

Restaurant News:
Indian restaurant Zaika has reopened on the Corniche. Check for a review soon.

The Ecole Superieure Gastronomique Hoteliere Arnaud has reopened on Allees Seydou Nourou Tall. Hopefully they'll still be turning out bargain lunches (Tel:+ 221 33 869 92 92).

Anyone tried the new 'J'Go' restaurant up in Almadies (Route de Ngor)? I had a look in on the opening night, but the place was filled with mediocre celebrities, and various poorly dressed members of the Dakar nightclub "set". Mrs Jiffler and I were given short shrift, possibly because we didn't have enough gold writing on our clothes.

No lollipops?

La Provence
If you're male, there is something strangely democratic about the maquis of Dakar (although I'm told they're not a patch on the super maquis of Abidjan). Who knows who you'll find at the bar - a shopkeeper, drug smuggler, politician, teacher? Female customers seem to be a bit thinner on the ground, and are often working in one way or another.

La Provence on Seydou Nourou Tall has just had something of a refit, with the new restaurant kitted out in the style of 'Former Soviet hotel breakfast room'. Head for the darker barroom for a little more atmosphere, where you'll find drunks watching silent TV news, Congolese beats on the stereo, plastic table cloths and dimmed lights. They have a doorman, which is a good sign that things will start to get livelier later on.

The menu is lengthy, and Mrs Jiffler tentatively orders fahitas. We know it's unlikely they'll have them, but sometimes you can be surprised. The waitress returns and informs us that the new chef only knows how to cook three things: Brochettes, steaks, and fried fish.

Our table tries one of everything, accompanied by cold Gazelle and stories about the aforementioned Former Soviet hotel breakfast rooms. The food arrives and I'm magically transported by the smell to another era. However limited the abilities of the chef, she has somehow managed to recreate the exact smell of a 1980s Little Chef. I'm overwhelmed by childhood memories of the 'popular' British roadside diner, and have a sudden craving for an overpriced toasted teacake and an Olympic feast breakfast.

1980s reverie aside, the chef wasn't strictly telling the truth when she said she could cook a steak. My specimen comes hammered to minute steak thickness and cooked until grey. It resembles the leather tongue from an old pair of hiking boots in both appearance and texture, while its taste is thankfully hidden behind a wall of sauce pebble-dashed with peppercorns. Chips are OK, a bit oily, but at least the oil is fresh.

In this neck of the woods, I'd say you're better off at Maquis des Alles just up the road. Watch out for a review soon.

La Provence
Allees Seydou Nourou Tall
Tel: 77 645 97 78
Open seven days. 7am to midnight, until 1am Friday and Saturday.

In search of a breeze

It's getting to that sticky time of year again when you sometimes just feel like lying down on a cool tiled floor wearing only your underpants. I find this particular posture both uncomfortable and undignified when taking lunch. You'll find me at the air-conditioned Les Ambassades with a battered paperback, squeaking on the leather seats and supping my Orangina.

Roof terraces are an ideal place to catch the breeze at this time of year, and there are a couple of venues worth checking out for a cheeky after work snifter.

Vounda-Bar
See what they did there? Vounda-Bar? I bet whoever came up with that is still chuckling. Who says the Germans don't have a sense of humour? Vounda-bar's roost atop the Goethe Institute in Point E affords a different view of Point E. You can spy on people at the nearby piscine while enjoying the, ahem, wonderful breeze. You need to hang on to your quotidien though, otherwise the aforementioned breeze will carry it off all the way to Zone B.

Bar prices are reasonable, and proper panino come in at the 1500 FCfa mark. A small selection of larger meals are available from a weekly menu for around 4000Fcfa. Alternate Sundays host an impressive buffet brunch at 10,000FCfa a head (booking advised).

Café Vounda-Bar sur la terasse du Goethe-Institut
Piscine Olympique angle Rue Diourbel
Point E - Dakar - Senegal /
Tel.: +221 77 560 21 60
Email: movingafrica@yahoo.fr
11am to 7pm.
http://vounda-bar.com/

Hotel Le Djoloff
This smart boutique hotel (rates from 50,000FCfa/night) has an attractive rooftop terrace overlooking Soumbedioune and the Iles de la Madeleine. The bar is comfy with tinkling salsa music while a blackboard advertises today's menu choices. The fish is reportedly good, which it should be given that you can see the fish market from the terrace, but veal escalopes were somewhat leathery. Smoked salmon came blistered with lemon juice, rather like a Dakar fish carpaccio.

Despite slightly mediocre food This place is hard to beat for a cheeky apres work beer on a Friday evening. Even Soumbedioune looks nice from up on high.

Hotel Le Djoloff
7 Rue Nani
Fann-Hock
Tel: 33 889 3630
info@hoteldjoloff.com
www.hoteldjoloff.com

Restaurant Rumblings:
For a look at the Collines de Niassam Lodge in Palmarin, click here.