A Brief Hiatus, Then...

Le Regal
This place is always busy, and that is part of its appeal. Go on a Saturday evening and there is a real sense that the night is just starting as you fill up on Pizza before heading out to get leathered on Gazelle / Grandial / whatever shakes your tree.

Pizzas are gooey and over-topped, which doesn't do the rather ordinary bread-like bases any favours. Fine for soaking up the Gazelle though. A plate of mixed brochettes is bear-sized and rather good for the money.

They do what looks like a thoroughly disgraceful Hamburger Royale, in case anyone is wondering.

Le Regal
Croisement Ouakam
Tel: 33 824 40 24 / 33 860 48 72
Open 7 days from 6.30am until 2am
Take away and delivery service available.

News:
Anybody hungry?
My usual mid-week lunching partner has sadly left these shores for the excitement of Washington DC so I'm looking for new lunchers to join me in seeking out the best and worst of Dakar restaurants.

Eligible candidates must be:
Non-vegetarian
Available during the week
Able to pay their own way
Able to knock back serious amounts of wine

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.

Cherry Mania

Le N'gor Tapas.
We've been here before on Dakar Restaurant Reviews. Something about terrible service, but a lovely place for sundowners. Locals refer to it as "Pied dans l'eau", or should that be "Les pieds dans l'eau'? Whatever.

Anyhow, it's got a nice upstairs bit now, doing tapas. It's an inventive Senegal-ised version of tapas, so don't expect elvers on toast, but do expect tasty bites. Each selection of tapas is named after one of the tribes of Senegal (Peul, Serere and so on) and is enough to amuse a group of, say, four people over cold beers. Service is perky.

The upstairs terrace is bright and breezy too, and just far enough from l'eau to be out of earshot of horrid French children tormenting pelicans.

Le N'gor Tapas
Route de la Corniche des Almadies
Tel: 775 04 30 06

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N'ice Cream
Mentioned in my last post, N'Ice Cream (whoever came up with that name is probably still recovering) is an excellent spot for a massive portion of ice cream. N'ice Cream is on my mind right now as I've just eaten some of their product at the Ecole Gastronomique. According to the flyer, pressed into my hand while I was weak from three courses and wine, they have more than 40 flavours every day (e.g. Cherry Mania!) and do deliveries.

N'ice Cream
97, Avenue A. Peytavin
Tel: 33 823 35 45
www.nicecream.sn (currently not working)

Bread and Chips

Aux Fins Palais

Aux Fins Palais is a smart little lunchtime haven serving up quality pastries alongside more substantial rations of salads and snacks. Service is swift, staff are friendly, and there is aircon throughout.

Salade Nicoise comes in ample portions with punchy anchovies. Better still - on a good day - Aux Fins Palais might possibly take the crown for the best chips in Dakar. Oh, and you can pop nextdoor for a monster N'ice cream.

Aux Fins Palais
97, Avenue Andre Peytavin
Tel: 33 842 96 46
Open 6.45am until 10.30pm. Closed Sundays.

La Provencale

Currently my favourite place to stop for bread in the middle of the peninsula. While it lacks the sophisitication of Grain d'or and the downtown temples of pastry, La Provence can be relied upon for no-nonsense staples and the odd macaroon thrown in.

Steer clear from such fancies as "Cheese and ham bread" and the somewhat disappointing gateaux. Instead try the wholemeal breads, pre-prepared quiches and the formidable biscuit selection and you can't go wrong.

La Provencale
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop
Point E
Tel: 338 251425. Open 6.15am until 11pm

Another branch in Sacre Coeur III, off the VDN.
Tel: 338 605828
7am to 1am

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News:

According to the TV guide, La Fourchette has re-opened after undergoing extensive renovations. Did anyone notice it had closed? Me neither. No reports yet, but hopefully they've renovated the menu as well.

The Mighty Mogador

Mogador

Uber-swanky bar, ultra-fancy French cooking, thank-you thank-you service. Yawn. The biggest surprise is that I actually like this place.

Offering fine dining in Dakar that actually attempts to be brave and creative, Mogador is not afraid to offer you camembert ice cream and dainty things in truffle oil. Better still, the chef is not too pretentious to offer a perfectly cooked steak and chips that is so ruggedly handsome you expect it to challenge you to an arm wrestle.

Go after payday and wear your best shoes.

Mogador
Route des Almadies
Tel: 338 200402
Open from midday until late.
Closed Sundays.

For a more in-depth review of Mogador, check Experimental Jifflings.

Steve Jobs fear not.

I-Cone
Nextdoor to Duplex, this place looks good from the outside, like a flashy cafe / salon du the. Shame they've done it on the cheap, and the inside already has that sickly sweet smell of a pub carpet. The menu describes it as 'Where the jet-set go'. I suppose it's not far from the airport.

Wilted cappucinos come in small cups at 2000Fcfa a pop. Panini are alright, but nothing spectacular. There isn't much else on the menu, apart from smoked salmon, and caviar at 30,000Fcfa a go.

Jiffler: "Why would they put 30 grand worth of caviar on the menu?"

Mrs Jiffler: "For the nobheads who go to Duplex."

I think Mrs Jiffler hit the nail on the head there. If I had to sum up this place in one sentence, it would be:

"For the nobheads who go to Duplex".

I-Cone
Route de l'aeroport
Almadies

P.S. For the uninitiated, Duplex is an extortionately expensive nightclub, frequented by swaggering bell-ends.

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...