African Restaurants @Not Quite Nigella

My fourth and last birthday celebration was to be with old friends Queen Viv and Miss America. African cuisine is one of those cuisines that I’ve enjoyed immensely in the past but is a little harder to find. Certainly there aren’t that many restaurants and most are concentrated in the Glebe/Newtown/Enmore area. The Second Wife, always a trusted source for restaurant recommendations enthused about Lat Dior and about the stunning woman in traditional African dress that works there. So of course we just had to try for ourselves. As they use native African ingredients which are often hard to find here, they import a lot of it from France where there is a large existing African community.

Traditional African wooden bowls

There’s a no booking policy and as it’s Sunday night and people need to work the next day, we decide to eat at 6.30pm which also assures that we get a table. The menu is charmingly written with things such as “Tangy!”, “Delicious!” and for the broccoli dish “Quite green in appearance!”. There are dishes from all over Africa with some marked according to the country of origin. We make a selection of mains and sides and entrees. Our waitress is the gorgeous African woman in traditional dress that The Second Wife mentioned.

Flower drink (left) and Ginger Drink (right) $2.50 each

We can’t resist ordering the drinks: a Ginger drink and a Flower drink. The ginger drink is heady in ginger and pungently refreshing. The flower drink is deliciously sweet with a flavour and sweetness similar to Ribena or a Hibiscus syrup.

Fataya pastries. From top to bottom Lamb $3, Fish $3.50 and Vegetarian $3

The pastries come out warm in their puff pastry shell and we divide them into 4. Miss America and I prefer the beef one which reminds us of a pastry laden beef pie whereas Queen Viv and Mr NQN prefer the Vegetarian one. The fish one is very fishy in taste – stronger than any of us really like. The accompanying tomato sauce is mild and tastes like tomato and capsicum and is nowhere near as fiery as it looks.

Flat bread $2 per piece

The flat bread comes out and it is delicious, like a folded crepe. As the kitchen is small and on this evening the restaurant is full, things tend to come out when they come out and we’ve finished the bread by the time the mains come out.