SENEGAL: LAND OF TERANGA

I am told, by my new chum, Bath, that “Teranga” Means welcome in the local Wolof language.

Well, I certainly got a welcome when I arrived a Dakar airport, but I am not sure it is the one that the Senegal Tourist Board had in mind or would wish to be reported by any visitor.

My plane did not get in until midnight and, the moment I stepped through customs into the grim arrivals hall, I was besieged by touts selling everything from phone cards to chewing gum. That in itself was not a problem. I have become used to that with my recent travels across India and Africa. What I have not become used to is being physically manhandled by taxi drivers, having people try to push me over to steal my phone and bags and having to fork over $10 to some one to be my “bodyguard”

By the time I finally met up with the people who had been struggling to get through security to find me, I was ready to get back on the plane and go, well just about anywhere.

Terranga indeed.

It says something about the country and my guide, Bath (pronounced Batch) that now, four days later, I am desperately sorry to be leaving what is one of the most fascinating and hospitable places I have been on the whole EAT MY GLOBE trip.

Bath knows everybody and has been taking me on extended walks through the city of Dakar to see the markets, shops and restaurants including small, bustling local joints where bowls of steaming, fiery Maffe (stews) are served for a little less than £1 and, my own particular favourite, Chez Loucha, Bath’s favourite in the city, where I tried the spicy goodness of Yassa Chicken soured with olives and local palm vinegar.

In between meals, I have taken the opportunity to see the other limited sights Dakar has to offer including a day trip to the infamous Isle De Goree, a former slave pen from which 15-20 million slaves were sent off, through “The Door of No Return” to The Americas, 6 million of them died en route.

Best of all, however, was Bath’s suggestion that I join him for a night in his home town of Rufisque some 20 miles along the coast from the capital. Famous for being the first town of any consequence in Senegal, it has suffered a decline in proportion to the rise of Dakar, but for all that, is a laid back, easy going city with not a French tourist in sight.

Bath took me to his home near the railway station where his family extended incredible hospitality and fed me another local speciality Thiebou Wekh, fish with rice. One of the great tastes of the trip with bits of crunchy rice from the bottom of the pan being laced with “soul” a local mix of spices both of which complimented the sweet flesh of the bony fish.

Last night, we went out on the town. Well, we went to a small local bar call Diobasse, where Bath introduced me to the favourite tipples, Gazelle beer and Pinchez, a rather potent local rose wine which in context goes wonderfully with Diba, chunks of roasted beef which have been marinated in garlic and chilli

It’s been a fun few days and I would like to return, all the more suprising given my first impressions of the country and the people on my arrival at the airport when I would rather have been anywhere but here.

Next, I am off to do a “Bob & Bing”

On the road to Morocco

SAF

I was Kid Clean
She was Anne de Siecle

SAF (Simple Authentic Food). As a restaurant name and acronym this must rank among the most annoying. It’s a name that you would like, if it were possible, to punch repeatedly. Which is probably not what the owners had in mind. Although, to be fair it also means pure in Turkish.

Owned by the sinister sounding LifeCo - reading their website I was sure they were the culinary branch of the Scientologists - SAF is a chain which has branches in Istanbul and Munich. Apparently, the London branch in fashionable Shoreditch is to be their flagship although why you’d put it on the rather scruffy Curtain Road beats me. The other more relevant factoid about SAF is that it’s a vegan restaurant. So that means no meat or fish produce (obviously), but also no dairy either (equally obviously). Leather fanciers don’t have to worry as there isn’t a dress code.

So HP in a vegan restaurant. Say it isn’t so Hermano. Well, yes I love my animal-based protein but not all the time (just most of the time). And if London is going to cement its - in my opinion dubious - reputation as one of the World’s best places to eat out in it should embrace all types of cuisine. Vegetarian and Vegan places are especially under-represented in the capital although the arrival of Beatroot and Rootmaster and the imminent opening of Vanilla Black show the times they are a-changin’.

The room at SAF is very pleasant, all light and modern and unlike anything around these parts which tend to be grim watering holes – although the kids up from Clapham seem to like them. The front half is the place for drinks and the restaurant is a bit squashed in at the back. There’s also a largish outdoor space which I’m sure will come into its own in the Summer.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the food, my only experience of Vegetarian or Vegan food being a visit to Mildred’s over a decade ago (I was young, I was I love) and the occasional South Indian meal or a bowl of dhal at home. As it turned out it was a bit of a curate’s egg (non-vegan).

After a cocktail and some workaday nuts and olives I started with the Spring Dumplings (main ingredient: Nettles from “just outside London” thank goodness). The dumpling dough was a bit thick and doughy but the filling was quite pleasant in a non-specific vegetal sort of way.

Since there weren’t any inverted commas I assumed my Cauliflower Risotto would be just that. I’m still not completely sure what I ate and neither was the server but it appeared to be some sort of pureed cauliflower with some un-processed bits on top of some sage polenta. There were a few baby Spring veg like carrots and a turnip dotted around and a smudge of an intense parley emulsion. I wasn’t enamoured with the cauliflower – odd texture, under-seasoned – and the sage polenta was probably as good as polenta is ever going to get i.e. not very, but the vegetables were great and the mushrooms were magic (I didn’t recognise the variety). This dish as a whole though sort of worked and was really quite interesting to eat with decent flavours. I also ordered a side salad which looked the part but was severely under-dressed and yet again there was not enough seasoning. Slightly damp mizuna is never a good idea.

A dessert of Brownie Sundae was a valiant attempt at pud but I missed the mouthfeel of dairy fat in the ice cream. The brownie, a sort of brown inert slab, was pretty tasteless. The cocoa in the form of some squidges and a little stick was nice and I was surprised by a smear of mint sauce - something I usually associate with a nice piece of roast lamb.

All the above comes at a price. Expensive bits of meat or fish may have been removed from the production line but the prices are still steep and the portion sizes on the small size. My Cauliflower ‘Risotto’ would have been a starter anywhere else and I thought £6.50 was excessive for four little dumplings.

I also felt the cooking could have been pushed a bit further. It was all a tad ‘polite’. If you’re going to start off by excluding certain categories of foodstuffs from your cooking then you have to work that bit harder and be more inventive to come up with something good and tasty.

I might visit the bar at SAF again but I’m not sure I’d eat there. In fact, the only reason I visited in the first place was because the large list of cocktails caught my eye. That and the fact that I heard that vegan chicks put out, especially to sad sacks like me. I’m joking of course – no way am I a sad sack.

FISH CLUB

Those days are gone forever
Over a long time ago, oh yeah

A lot of my early working life in London was spent in or around Clapham Junction. Anyone who travels or lives (poor souls) South of the river will at some time or another pass through or stop here - the busiest rail interchange in the UK. Now, I’ve escaped to the hills North of the river I only visit because I have to. My rich dentist is here, so for me a visit is usually thrice painful (the treatment, the bill and just being in Battersea in case you were wondering).

To be honest Clapham Junction still looks the same as it always did – a bit of a hole. The only differences are that now the house prices are much, much higher and Northcote Road (aka Nappy Valley) has completely changed. Once just a normal street in SW with a market, now best described as (to borrow one of HS’s favourite words) hateful. If you looked up the word “smug” in the dictionary the definition would be “Northcote Road (see crap)”.

Battersea isn’t all bad, of course. There’s a little place called Fish Club which I visited one afternoon. I’d been meaning to visit for years especially as one of the owners, James Thomson, had previously been cooking up a storm at Medcalf’s in Exmouth Market.

The concept (there’s always a concept) is refreshingly simple. You order your food from the blackboard, queue up and pay, then the staff cook it for you. You can either take it away or eat it there. If you pick the latter option there’s a few tables at the front and a couple of refectory tables at the back where you’ll also find Heinz Ketchup. Not the poncy stuff you get at Tom’s Place. Fish and shellfish are from the well-regarded Ben's Fish based in West Mersea. There’s also beer, wine and light refreshments.

A starter of Prawn and Chorizo Kebobs (sic) were two decent sized skewers of little individual Chorizos and fresh prawns which had been grilled. Chorizo can be quite overpowering and the prawns not being the sweetest specimens didn’t really stand up to the sausage but it was still a gutsy and enjoyable dish, especially when accessorised by a little tub of pungent saffron aioli.

The one weakness in the menu was shown up by my piece of battered Coley. Now if my failing memory is correct Coley used to be preferred by at least eight out of ten cats and really it should have stayed that way because for us humans it’s a pretty tasteless lump of protein. It also wasn’t very firm which I don’t think was down to the cooking as the batter was a tad underdone. An inexpensive dish, sure, but there’s a reason for that.

I saw a couple of good-looking Royal Bream go out, though, so the grilled fish may be a better bet. In fact there’s such a good choice of other fish from Sardines and Mackerel to whole Plaice and Slip Soles I wonder why I got so fixated with having conventional Fish and Chips…what am I saying (you can take the boy out of the North etc).

Chips were bloody great. Tartare sauce was homemade and pleasant enough but the best of the accompaniments were the pickled onions. Also, made aquí, they didn’t look much but were as good as my granddad used to make i.e. the nuts. He was also a big favourite with clippies, but that’s a story for another time.

I liked Fish Club. I feared it might be some sort of sophisticated, corporate operation, totally lacking in soul but it’s the completely opposite. The raw ingredients are good, the cooking mostly spot-on and vibe (sorry) very friendly. The perfect neighbourhood joint, I would say.

Oh and it’s probably for the best if I don’t say anything about the mushy peas. I’m still a bit het up after thinking about Northcote Road.

MOZAMBIQUE: WHERE THE SUNNY SKIES ARE AQUA BLUE

Well, HP complained that my last post was scant in the food department. A serious complaint when it comes to matters DH.

He was right, of course, but there was a reason or, reasons. Primarily, it was about the wine, not the food (the hint was in the title) and, secondly, was the fact that the food in South Africa was, brai apart, a bit blah. Not actively bad, just nothing actively worth writing about.

Here’s hoping this makes up for it and HP resumes his rightful pride in my every utterance. He loves me so no one else has to.

Mozambique is as far from South Africa as you can imagine. The moment we stepped off the plane from Cape Town to be faced with the crumbling façade of Maputo’s decaying streets, we knew we had gone from first to third quicker than Leeds United.

Truth be told, there is little to charm about the ugly capital city. A tour of the sights of significance took all of an hour including the main market and the fish market where, if we had not made other plans, we could have purchased some of those enormo prawns for which the country is famous and had them prepared at adjacent stalls.

Instead, we set our sights on Costa Do Sol, Maputo’s most famous restaurant and an African institution. Set on the edges of the glistening India Ocean, this Art Deco eatery has been supplying the well fed of Mozambique with achingly fresh shellfish for over seventy years. We were soon seated on the terrace with the first of many local beers and deciding between small, medium, large or fuck off, prawns while chewing on some grilled squid and spicy Portuguese sausage.

Neal, unfortunately, was not a well man, the result of a dodgy meal following our late arrival the night before. So, when his plate of a dozen medium prawns arrived at the same time as mine, he went distinctly green. He battled on, but soon had to give in leaving half a plate of the local delicacy for me to gorge down with my own dozen. Sympathy only goes so far when seafood is concerned

Spectacularly fresh and meaty, they were served well by a chilled bottle of Portuguese wine.

Leaving Maputo was not a great hardship, particularly when our next stop was Guludo Lodge on the Quirimbas Archipelago. A relatively new lodge run entirely on Eco principles the lodge supports the local villages, employs over fifty locals and makes little impact on the local environment.

Our tented banda was lit with paraffin lamps with the only power source coming from a generator in the main office where we had to send anything that needed charging. Not that we could get a signal when our phones were working anyway.

A more idyllic spot you could not find and all the more appreciated after the four-hour drive to get there, a welcoming drink and our first meal under the clear, starry skies. A perfect romantic spot, had I not been there with a bearded man from Lincoln. Neal offered to spoon, but it wasn’t quite the same falling asleep next to someone whose snoring drowned out the sound of the ocean some twenty feet away.

The fact that the food, prepared by frighteningly young ex-pat, Emma, was good too was an added bonus, particularly when everything, bar the fish and seafood supplied by local fishermen, had to be brought up from Pemba.

There was little to do all day but laze in a hammock, indulge in a bit of snorkelling, help local fishermen haul in their nets and play with the kids in Guludo village. All good relaxing fun.

Add that to the unfailingly charming service from everyone else at the lodge and Guludo was as pleasant a place to spend three days as I have had on the whole trip so far.

I would love to say that, on our return for a final night in Maputo, we headed out to chow down on some piri piri chicken or seafood. But, thanks to the joys of LAM, the flying gulag that is Mozambique’s national airline, we suffered a five hour delay and arrived at our hotel just in time for a cheese toasted sandwich just before the bar closed. Eat My Globe indeed.

Next stop, Jo’burg for one night and then on to Senegal.

MAZE GRILL

Driving like a fool out to Hackensack
Drinking his dinner from a paper sack

One of my favourite types of restaurant is the American Steakhouse. The sort of place that’s all dark and clubby with lots of wood. Where you can get a huge ice-cold Dry Martini and an unfeasibly large Steak, charred almost black on the outside and bloody within. There might be some sides of crisp frites, a crisp green salad or some creamed spinach. A bottle of a big suitable Red will definitely be involved. We don’t really do Steakhouses in London. Yes, you can get decent steaks: recently a cracking Cote de Boeuf in the Anchor and Hope and a Bone-in Sirloin at Hawksmoor come to mind, but they’re quite different beasts to say a Peter Luger or a Keen’s.

The Maze Grill is, unsurprisingly then, nothing like an American Steak house. It looks exactly like what it is – the new Gordon Ramsay restaurant - decorated in that utilitarian chic that the critics loved so much at Foxtrot Oscar that the place was closed down for a refurb. I dare say there’ll be similar gripes about Maze Grill. Me, I’m not fussed although I think tablecloths might be a good idea – the tables do look very bare and this isn’t a gastropub.

The USP behind El Gordo’s new joint, located just a few steps from the current Maze restaurant, is that Jason Atherton, the chef has got a new toy. He’s imported a broiler from the US, the idea being that it will allow very high temperatures to be attained and thus achieve a good char on the steak.

To go with the shiny new broiler is a menu featuring a largish array of steaks. There’s corn fed USDA Prime steaks, there’s grain-fed steaks, grass-fed steaks and inevitably some Wagyu steaks as well. Each category of beef comes in different sizes but I was disappointed that they all max out at 12oz and it seems strange that there’s not a Porterhouse on offer. I was told later on that bigger sizes were available on request.

All the beef with the exception of the Creekstone USDA Prime is Australian which is supposedly producing some good meat at the moment. If beef isn’t your thing then there’s a load of other meaty or fishy options together with starters, small plates, sides and sauces.

I’ve been eating a lot of grass-fed beef recently so the Creekstone seemed like a good option to see what the US corn-fed stuff was like – it’s a while since I’ve been to the States – and the fact that it had been aged for thirty-five days clinched it.

Before the steak a couple of pricey small plates. Pigs on toast, minced trotter topped by some Parmesan, a dish extremely similar to one I had at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, was nice but no more than a couple of bites. Salt and Pepper Squid could have done with a crispier batter.

Ominously, on the menu the Creekstone and Wagyu are listed as “Market Price” a phrase I understand when used in conjunction with seafood but have no idea when applied to steaks. Now, the server did mention something about the price (I heard mumble…mumble…mumble pounds) which I didn’t take in and didn’t double-check. Anyway, that 12oz Steak comes in at a whopping £42. So that’s what Market Price means. Sides and sauces cost extra so the bill mounts up pretty quickly.

The steak when it came looked a bit on the small side. I’m sure it was the advertised 12oz, it just didn’t look it. The requested char on the steak was non-existent which makes you wonder about the point of having the broiler. Maybe they haven’t worked out the best way of using it. Perhaps the steak was cut too thin to get the required colour whilst keeping the inside cooked to order. As it turned out the steak varied from medium-rare at the edges to rare in the middle. It was very tender and succulent but unfortunately not particularly flavoursome. It lacked, what I believe Americans term “minerality” and wasn’t particularly beefy tasting in spite of the ageing. Back to grass-fed beasts methinks.

Sides were a mixed bag. The Bordelaise sauce was ok and came with some nice little croquettes of bone marrow. Chips were flaccid, pale and in need of an extra frying – I saw some better examples going to another table. Perversely, Onion Rings were over-fried and tasted more of oil than onion. I have no idea what purpose was served by an under-roasted head of garlic with a bundle of thyme.

Chocolate praline delice with peanut and olive oil ice cream sounded interesting but was quite prosaic: a small chocolate mousse topped with a micro-scoop of ice-cream and a praline wafer.

I did have high hopes for the Maze Grill as I’ve enjoyed many of GR’s gastropubs and previously I’ve had an excellent meal at Maze restaurant itself but the Grill may be an opening too far for the ever-expanding empire. It’s not so much the prices, which are what you might expect in Mayfair (I’m excluding my steak here), it’s just the execution, which is a bit half-arsed, a bit timid. New York has never felt so far away.