Africa — Around the World in 196 Bites

Restaurant: Ali Baba - 32 Ivor Place, London NW1 6DA

Egypt is in the north east of Africa and has the second largest river in the world flowing through it, the Nile. Its bordering countries are Libya, Sudan, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The capital city of Egypt is Cairo.

It is shown by ancient carvings in tombs and many paintings that Egyptians loved food and that their cuisine dates back to a very long time ago. Many Egyptian dishes include lots of fresh vegetables that were grown by the river Nile like rice and lentils, which still are. Their cuisine is largely influenced by Middle Eastern and Mediterranean countries, for example, salted fish is very popular for families living near the River Nile. One of their most well known dishes is Koshari. This is rice, lentils and macaroni served with spicy tomato sauce.

We managed to find an Egyptian restaurant that was said to be very authentic, called Ali Baba. This is a small, family run restaurant that has recently celebrated being open for 40 years. We thought we'd give it a try!

Our Meal:

Starter: Humous - Chickpea puree

Flatbread

Cabbage Leaves - Hot filled cabbage leaves with rice and minced lamb

Falafel - Fried balls of ground beans and spices

Foul - Broad beans with lemon and garlic

Mains: Molokhia - Corchorus leaves (leaves of a tall green plant) stew with chicken or lamb (we ordered chicken)

Bamia - Okra (green flowering plant) and tomato stew with chicken or lamb (we ordered chicken)

Ali Baba Special - Combination of of lamb and nuts on a bed of rice

Koshari - Rice, lentils and macaroni served with a spicy tomato sauce

White Rice

Desserts: Baklawa - Layers of pastry filo pastry with honey syrup and nuts

Rating: ☆ ☆

The starters were very nice; especially the Cabbage Leaves, but the main courses let the meal down a lot, especially the Ali Baba Special and the Molokhia. The Ali Baba Special was a lamb shank, which was nice, but there were literally only four nuts on the bed of rice that came with it, which was disappointing. The worst dish, however, was the Molokhia. The owner told us that this is what Egyptians eat it everyday, this may have just been that we were not used to it. The service was functional but the owner wasn’t very smiley and we could hardly understand what she was saying. The restaurant was, however, well kept and in a nice location.

Best Dishes: Cabbage Leaves, Foul

Not so good: Molokhia

All in all, I think the starter were good, but if you want to try Egyptian food I wouldn't recommend Ali Baba.

Comment

Restaurant: Zam-Sare Restaurant

Burundi is a small country in central Africa, which borders Tanzania, Rwanda and Congo.

80% of the land in Burundi is used for agriculture meaning they can grow lots of fruit and veg like matooke, cassava, sweet potato, plantain and more. Some families have their own cattle as Burundians are very big on homemade food. Most of the population, however don't and only have enough money to eat goat or sheep (these are the only available meats) very rarely.

As Burundians are known for homemade cooking it was very difficult to find a restaurant in London serving their cuisine. After desperately searching the web we found out that there wasn't one. However, the food in Burundi is largely influenced by it's near by countries, an example being Uganda. So we ended up going to an Ugandan, serving lots of the same food that they eat in Burundi.

Our orders:

Mains: Matooke - Very savoury tasting, mashed green bananas.

Cassava - A long, whitish starch that grows on a plant.

Sweet Potato - Not the orange sweet potato that we normally think of. This sweet potato is white and tastes slightly more savoury.

Plantain - more savoury version of a banana

Goat Curry

Goat Stew

Rating ☆☆.5

This wasn’t a bad meal in any way, it felt very homemade, but the atmosphere and location weren’t amazing; we were the only people in the restaurant, although everything looked well cared for. The owner was lovely and very helpful. She prepared a typical Burundian meal and also told us that she was very proud to be Ugandan.

Best dishes: Goat Stew, Matooke

Could have been better: I don't think that any dish was bad. Some tastes like the Cassava we didn't like very much but is just because we're not used to it.

In this meal we tasted many things we hadn't even heard of before and ended up liking most of it. Definitely give Burundian a try, you never know, it may be your favourite.

1 Comment