| Toast to the Coast >> Chill with Côte D’Ivoire cooking at L’Abidjanaise
Open for about a year, L’Abidjanaise caters mostly to those in the know, largely ex-pat Africans hankering for a taste of home. It’s not all that surprising that more people aren’t aware of the place, as it’s tucked away on a residential CDN sidestreet surrounded by apartment buildings. The inside has lots of tables for groups, the walls are hung with printed fabrics and there’s a big wooden bar at the back. But the key to the ambiance is a TV set blaring a roster of current musique ivorienne. The videos all have a certain 1980s production value to them, using those wacky wipes, fades, and blue screen superimpositions-along with lots of MC Hammer moves. The tunes are catchy, and they make what’s already quite a pleasant space into a relaxed party palace. Meals are divided into sauce-based dishes ($10) and grilled meats like chicken or fish ($10–12). In the first category, there’s mafi chicken made with ground peanuts, creamy pépé soup with beef or tripe (aka intestines), and kedjenou, a thick chicken stew cooked in a casserole or, more traditionally, an earthenware jar. There are also a couple of salads ($3) to start, green or tuna, but ours never arrived and we didn’t really need them anyway. From the saucy selections, I tried djoumgblé, described as gombo with meat and dried fish. Gombo is the West African term for okra, a vegetable that found its way across the ocean to also become a big part of southern U.S. cooking. I expected a stew containing pieces of okra, but I guess it had dissolved into the thick, slightly glutinous gravy. In any case, it made for a tasty dish, with lots of firm chunks of beef in it. A straight-up meal, with a bit of intrigue under the surface. Hot off the grill, the tilapia was a whole fish, plump and meaty and perfectly cooked. The flesh was moist and flaky, and the skin had a bit of a charcoal taste to it. It was topped with uniform slivers of onion and thin slices of tomato (maybe there was a Starfrit™ back in the kitchen somewhere). There was also a somewhat spicy red sauce on the side, adding to the fresh, tangy flavours. A choice of accompaniments is included with the main courses. I got plain white rice to soak up the stew, while my companion opted for attiéké, which is similar to North African couscous except that it’s made with manioc (cassava) instead of semolina. Another option for next time is aloco, fried slices of plantain. More dishes are slowly being added to the restaurant’s repertoire, often in response to requests from customers. The waitress explained that Côte d’Ivoire is very multicultural and there are a lot of people from neighbouring countries living there. As a result, they’ve adopted a few Senegalese specialties as their own, like yassa chicken with olives and onions, and tchiébou dien, a stew served with rice reddened by tomatoes. In addition to those of an alcoholic nature, there are
some fun drinks to try here. One is hibiscus juice called bissape, another
is gnamakoudji, a ginger and pineapple concoction. : |