Description: Nigeria - 08/07/09

On the menu at Cassava Cassava you will find such dishes as Puff Puff, Moi-moi, and Fufu (though sadly not other Nigerian favourites like Chin Chin, Kuli-Kuli, Dundun and Bunce Bunce). Equally sadly I'm not sure that this is a venue to which I will want to return...

Cassava Cassava is a Nigerian restaurant located on the upper reaches of Cheetham Hill Road. Looking for a Nigerian eatery we had chosen this place over a couple of rivals for two reasons: it had its own website, and I knew some people who had eaten here and survived to tell the tale. In fact, one had raved about the pepper soup. So four of us converged here - Paul and me, Simon, and my friend Laura who in less than a month's time would be jetting off to teach in Africa for two years. And at first glance the restaurant reassured us - it looked a lot cleaner and more hygienic than most places in Cheetham Hill, and the tables were impeccably laid out with pristine table-cloths, rattan covers, new leather table mats, and flower decorations. So far, top marks for presentation!

This was however let down by the staff. There was one woman in residence as combined hostess / cook / waitress / cleaner. No wonder she was so surly. She seemed annoyed by our very appearance, with a 'why do I have to put up with these idiots?' air. While she spoke English, she didn't really understand it enough to give answers to questions concerning the size of the portions, and whether a starter and a main would be too much for Laura. Plus, half the dishes on the menu seemed to be absent on the day we visited. Puff Puff? Off. Barbecue Suya? Off. Ewa Aganyi? Off. They also ran rapidly out of drinks. After two cans of Sprite, that was their lemonade exhausted. They were already out of Diet Coke, and so substitued Coke Zero. However, after two cans of that they were again exhausted, meaning that I was reduced (after first trying to order Sprite, and then Diet Coke) to having full-fat Coca-Cola. Already it was looking like it was going to be a night of second-bests...

The lady did get busy in the kitchen once we had finally compromised between what we wanted and what the restaurant had. The hum and ding of the microwave soon echoed from the kitchen door. Considering that there was only one of her I think she did quite well in getting all four of our starters to the table simultaneously. However she also brought all four mains at the same time, prompting a certain amount of swapping around and rearranging of dishes.

As we had been pre-warned, the Pepper Soup was not for the unwary. Even so Paul started spluttering after a spoonful. This was a brown, bitty concoction that was essentially ground black pepper in suspension, though there were a few other discernable flavourings in there too (like ginger). White fish had been added to the soup as well. It wasn't bad at all. The other starter ordered was Moi-Moi. This was a gelatinous plate-sized square of pounded and steamed beans. A hard-boiled egg had been attractively inset in the centre. To me it was overly bland, tasting only of plain bean. Laura decided that she quite liked it; however the size of the serving was pretty prohibitive. One between four would have been fine; two between two was excessive.

Laura was less impressed by her jollof rice. Paul in particular had previously found this a rather innocuous dish, but it did not find favour here. In fact it left her worrying whether she would be able to find anything palatable to eat at all in the two years she would be spending out in Africa! Perhaps it was the rather poor quality of the meat. I can vouch for this - my meal featured a large beef shank, but when I scraped off the sauce it turned out to be mostly one thick bone topped cauliflower-like with fat. There were only three fork-fulls of meat on it. In the absence of Suya I had ordered Efo Elegusi. My heart sank when I saw it come out. It was accompanied by a bulbous white mass. My heart quailed. However, thankfully my fears were not realised - it was not kenkey. It was instead pounded yam. This had a dense rather rubbery texture (a bit like a suet dumpling), with a flavour not unlike that of instant mash potato. Taste-wise it was nothing scary, though again due to its size it over-faced me a little. (This was something I have found repeatedly in my exploration of African foods - the meal is so bulked out with some form of starch / carbohydrate, be it rice, cassava couscous, kenkey, or injera flatbread, that it is hard to eat all of it). Next to the yam, and covering the meat, was a thick mustardy wasp-hued sauce. This had been labelled on the menu as a 'soup', but a sauce was much more accurate description. A key ingredient here was ground melon and pumpkin seeds. I find it hard to describe the rather bitter flavour, other than to say it tasted almost exactly how you would expect something made primarily from ground melon and pumpkin seeds to taste. Striations in the yellowy sauce were caused by stewed leaves. It was off-puttingly surrounded by a lake of orange palm oil. Once again, this was something I found that I would be able to eat if I had to, but probably wouldn't by choice!

Simon meanwhile had ordered Asaro - yam pottage. The menu promised ‘Cubed yam cooked in pepper, tomatoes and onion stew with crayfish and traditional African Spices’. The cubed yam was not in evidence. Nor, if I recall, were the crayfish.

A final surprise came when we were ready to leave.
"Could we have the bill please?"
"£42."
No bill, no itemisation (which was okay as we still had the menus on the table, and it seemed accurate), just a total to pay. It was hardly customer service to win over diners. On the whole I think it is this that was most off-putting. The food was not great, but the service was awful. We just got the feeling that our custom was, at best, being (barely) tolerated. I don't think that our visit to Cassava Cassava is likely to be repeated...

(Other Nigerian restaurants include Royal African Cuisine on Stockport Road in Levenshulme – supposedly owned and run by a genuine Nigerian prince. There is also a buffet that runs at the Nigeria Centre, Appleby House, Platt Lane, though I have not heard particularly good things about it…)
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