I am not shy of my love of cooking. I enjoy it thoroughly and I am constantly experimenting. I am a gastronome; I am always in search of the best restaurants. I know most of them like the back of my hand. I can tell you which one does the best mushroom soup and which one has premium lobsters. I know the ones with the freshest salad, the one with the best Chinese, Indian, Taiwanese and the one that is unbeatable in Moroccan couscous and lamb shanks. I am also able to line up the best Nigerian food restaurants for miles both at home and abroad. I consciously find them, my taste buds and my feel-good quotient helping me to decide whether I will return to the restaurant or not.
Let us take mushroom soup. That broth that is both Western and African. I am not a fan of mushrooms. As a young girl I was told by my grandmother that mushrooms come in two varieties, the deadly ones and the edible ones. Then she added a most scary comment, “It’s difficult to tell one from the other.” So I stayed off mushrooms like a plague. But when I became a lady, got taken to lunch, I began to see it in continental menus. I tried them with caution. I soon got used to a few on a plate or as part of a bigger meal. They tasted squishy, slightly salty and unendearing. Again I avoided mushrooms like the plague.
Then I tried as an entrée a particular mushroom soup in an upscale French restaurant in Abuja. It was pure heaven. Melt-in-the-mouth broth that slides over your tongue and warms your stomach in gastronomic joy. I have gone back several times to this restaurant because of this soup. Thick, welcoming, comforting and creamy, served with two slices of the most delicious homemade bread. I have interested my spouse in this soup, sworn by it, until on days when he is sick, only the soup will do. Trust me, it’s a happiness and comfort soup. I have been to restaurants all over the world. No one makes mushroom soup like Chez Victor in Abuja. It is the definitive mushroom soup.
I know where they serve the best Gbegiri soup with Amala with Aboidi and Orisirisi. I enjoy kunungyada so much, I wrote a poem about it. I also love Okpa in its wrap leaves early in the morning. I am an unashamed gastronome.
I understand restaurants so much my family leans towards me when the menu arrives. I manoeuvre through the protein section, fish, Poisson, meat, poulet, and a little bit of lamb. Then one has to go through a maze finding the main meals and sides.
My restaurant hunt has led me to many new magazines, books and food events worldwide. My interest has led me to an interesting discovery in food chains and restaurants.
Here are the things I found, so let’s share:
a.) A fish restaurant serves fish. If you order meat here, it’s really at your own peril. It has to be a really good restaurant to do meat. Best advice, stay with fish.
b.) Always try to stay near the waiter’s station, you get more attention.
c.) Restaurants usually shop for perishables on Mondays when the weekend stock is done, so make sure you seek fresh food from Tuesdays. Mondays are not very good. It’s usually leftovers.
d.) Choose your restaurant carefully. If they have kept you waiting 40 minutes before they took your order, something is wrong. If they were really good and they suddenly changed six months down the road, management has changed. If they suddenly change a menu you fell in love with or can’t deliver the menu in the really special way you liked it, the chef who made it so well has left the restaurant.
Are restaurants run as well as they should be in Nigeria? That’s another question entirely. When you have to wait for a waiter to sluggishly come to you means the waiter is neither a gastronome nor an efficient worker. A waiter must love the food he serves.
Food is art. I love the cookery channels. A platter of fresh strawberries with a bow drizzle of chocolate syrup, chicken curry cooked for enjoyment, juicy warm served over Basmati rice, prawn spring rolls, yam porridge made with smoked fish and red oil, corn and beans, my comfort food. Oh, what I did not tell you was that I love to cook and I have been told I am a phenomenal cook.
Well, is a cookbook on the cards? Yes, I am working on it but you have to wait for a little while more. Am I thinking of opening a restaurant? I am not sure but we will see. But wait a minute! Cooking, while enjoyable, is very hard work. I hope I have made you hungry enough. That was my aim. I am an avowed gastronome.
Eugenia Abu
