Kumasi Market

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3rd Avenue

27-28 Brixton Village

SW9 8PR

020 7737 6277

Kumasi is a city in Ghana and the capital of Ashanti. It gives its name to Kumasi Market in Brixton Village, one of a trio of stores in Third Avenue selling mainly food and goods from West Africa. Together with the African Queen Fabric store, it’s like a little bit of Africa in the heart of Brixton. I have intended for some time to cover one of these stores in our series of posts on food shops in Brixton but I always found them a bit daunting. The dried and smoked fish is particularly exotic. However, I’ve occasionally chatted to the shopkeepers, and found that they are really helpful in explaining what they have on offer.

So, the intention in these posts is to buy the ingredients at a Brixton store and to make a typical meal. As we have reported before, we have been to Ghana and enjoyed the Ghanaian food at May Foods – see the report here – but this has been my first attempt at actually cooking the food. It has been more of a challenge, as many of the key ingredients are less familiar to those of us with a European background. This is particularly true of the key part of any true Ghanaian meal, the carbohydrate.

The dish I’ve gone for is chicken in peanut sauce served with banku and spinach. I’ve used an amalgam of different recipes. All of the main ingredients have come from Kumasi Market, apart from the chicken which came from Jones the Butcher.

The ingredients for the chicken in peanut sauce are: 1 kilo of chicken (legs, thighs and wings are best); 3 tbsp vegetable oil; 1 large onion, chopped; a 3-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced; 6-8 garlic cloves, chopped roughly; 1 kilo of sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks; 1 can of chopped tomatoes; 1 litre chicken stock; 1 cup groundnut paste/peanut butter; 1 cup peanuts, roasted; 1 tbsp ground coriander; 1 teaspoon cayenne; Salt and ground black pepper; and lots of chopped coriander as a garnish. Most of the heat in the dish, and in an authentic version there’s plenty, comes from the ground black pepper. I

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The first step is to brown the chicken and put to one side. Then fry the onions, adding the spices when it has softened. Finally you put everything in the same pot and stew until the chicken and sweet potato is all cooked – check after an hour. After it cooled a bit I removed the bones but this is a matter of taste. The finished article probably benefits from being left to stand for a while, before reheating. You can garnish with lots of coriander.

The accompaniments were banku and spinach. The banku is balls of fermented dough and takes a bit of getting used to, as well as being hard work to make. I did make my own, with a mixture of readymade cassava and corn dough bought from Kumasi and it was an education in itself. However, my tip is to buy it readymade from May Foods in Market Row. It should also be understood that the term spinach applies to almost any green leaves. I just chopped and washed mine and fried it in garlic infused oil.

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Everyone enjoyed the chicken and spinach but views were mixed on the banku. We found a little goes a long way. It would be good with rice of course.

Ultimate Caribbean Buffet

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 16 Acre Lane, Brixton, London SW2 5SG

020 3302 6390

Usually we do not review chains but this is so small – only a couple of outlets – that we decided to make an exception. We also wanted to cover different types and prices of meals. This is a green, white and black Jamaican restaurant which looks like a café with melamine tables and chairs. There is a bar on the left, with a limited selection of drinks, and a line of hot and cold dishes to the left. The line of dishes is important as this is a buffet. All you can eat within 90 minutes.

There is choice but it is hard to discern what each dish is as there is rarely a label and often dishes look alike. So this is a real voyage of discovery. We think there was jerk chicken (several varieties), fried chicken, curry goat, potentially lamb in a sauce, rice and peas, salads, plantain and callaloo (or could have been spinach). There are also some desserts – fruit and a pudding (we weren’t sure what it was).

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We had a bit of several of the dishes and the chicken was hot and spicy – the kind that has your lips tingling for several hours. The rice and peas were my favourite. The plantain my least as it looked really delicious but had only been caramelized and was hard at the centre. We went back a few times and all the food was hot (temperature) and they did keep refilling the containers when it looked too low so there was always enough to choose from.

For a Caribbean cheap fast meal for the very hungry this is a good outlet. We wouldn’t choose it for a night out. It costs £7.50 per person and you can choose a soft drink, water or alcohol and they allow BYO.

Nanban

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Address: 426 Coldharbour Ln, London SW9 8LF

Telephone: 020 7346 0098

Website: http://www.nanban.co.uk/

This is the first restaurant opened by 2011 MasterChef champion Tim Anderson and … it is in Brixton. This is in the revamped Gyoza (RIP – many an enjoyable evening spent there!) restaurant after some large changes to the décor but keeping some nostalgia from a building that used to be the eel and pie shop. There are regular tables and some “carriages” for lots of people to sit together. There are also long cork low bench-like tables which are OK for two people but any more and you get a crick in your neck as it’s like playing tennis. There was a bit of space when we arrived on a Monday evening but by the time we left it was full and really humming.

The long menu is on their website so we won’t repeat it here but just to say that there are certainly adaptations to Brixton cuisine and we couldn’t find much like the menu we enjoyed when Tim visited Market House last summer  – see our review here. You choose from small plates and big plates. We decided to wait for another trip to try the twice cooked pig tripe, and anyway, we thought our choices daring enough.

There were three of us so one of us chose three small plates: the Ackee and Saltfish Korokke (Potato, ackee, and saltfish croquettes with katsu sauce), Brixton Market Salad (“Whatever looks good in Brixton Market”, which turned out to be avocado with a Japanese dressing) and Chicken Karaage (Deep-fried marinated chicken thighs). All three were fantastic. The chicken was succulent and had the perfect amount of chilli. We couldn’t taste the ackee so much in the croquettes but the saltfish definitely made an impact.nab04

We also went for a big plate of Curry Goat Tsukemen (Curry goat dipping ramen with ½ tea-pickled egg, seafood sawdust, and Scotch bonnet-pickled bamboo shoots). I was warned about the pickled bamboo and was very glad I was. My tentative first bite turned my mouth on fire and I carefully shifted them to the side of the plate – too much of an adventure for me and I hadn’t brought enough tissues. The goat was succulent, with little bone and not to much fat. A really great dish with more to it than West indian curry goat – if only the cardamom pods. It had a real depth of flavour and I would definitely order it again.

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The last guest ordered Mentaiko Pasta (Spaghetti in chilli-cured cod roe sauce with onsen egg, Parmesan, pancetta, aonori, and black pepper). This was a bit like a spaghetti carbonara but with extra umami from the cod roe – unexpected but excellent..

We washed this down with tap water, a Camden Lager and a glass of Sanglier white wine. This is one to add to our list of where to eat on Mondays. The bill came to  £44.15 including service and the drinks.

Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen – Pop Brixton

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To find: Unit 36 Pop Brixton 49 Brixton Station Road London SW9 8PQ

telephone: 07931602889

email: ghanakitchen@gmail.com

http://zoesghanakitchen.co.uk/category/events/

We had heard good things about this restaurant, even before they had a permanent residence, but when we booked a pop-up “event” they cancelled. So this visit is long awaited. And while we can’t claim to be experts on Ghanaian food, a couple of us have been there and we also liked the food at Brixton’s longer-established more traditional Ghanaian restaurant – see our review here.

This restaurant is well signposted as part of Pop Brixton. This is a collection of large storage containers offering food, drink and the occasional piece of jewellery or clothing. ZGK is on the upper level and can only be approached from the set of stairs on the right immediately after the entrance.

There is a small interior with tables and benches for 12 people who know each other very well. There is also an outside area but the rain has made that only for the really hardy. The menu has mains, sides, sauces and desserts so easy peasy. Although the restaurant is Ghanaian it didn’t have any of the usual staples like banku or kenkey on offer. This is more like tapas, with the carbohydrate coming from the plantain, okra and jollof rice. For the mains there is chicken, beef, mackerel and lamb. But the menu is a bit limited for vegetarians who have to settle for the sole bean dish.

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We started with krispy kale which wasn’t very crispy and was a bit oily. This is an easy dish to prepare and cook and we thought it must have wilted in the humidity of the kitchen. Then we tried to work our way through the whole menu with every dish except the beef. We also ordered Okra tempura fries,  Kelewele Spiced Chips (Caramelised chunky plantain chips infused w/ a spice mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne pepper and fresh ginger) and Jollof rice. We liked everything and the spiced mackerel was a really hefty dish filling the whole plate and was spicy. The well cooked and spicy lamb was a favourite of the person who ordered it, even though he doesn’t really like peanut butter. The beans were declared a hit as was the chicken. The chicken was eaten with a very spicy hot Smoked Fish based Chilli Oil Dip. This was lovely but our choice of flavours slightly odd.

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Then we come to the side dishes. Okra was covered in good batter but was a bit oily (on the outside) and the plantain chips were really good if a bit flabby. I assume to get them really crisp they need to be covered in some form of flour. Jollof rice was certainly something we would order again.

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For dessert we ordered the doughnut and the Banofee pie. The Banofee pie was the star. The doughnuts were a bit on the heavy side.

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They do serve alcohol and we ordered two light and two dark lagers which – be warned – come in huge bottles. I say this because not only is it a lot of liquid and toilets are a scarce resource but they also take up a lot of space on the table. We suggest sharing and using a cup then you increase the table space.

The lovely surprise at the end of the meal was the bill – £60.00 for four people including four large beers – a bargain.

Mamma Dough

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address: The Angel, 354 Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8QH
telephone: 020 7095 1491
email: info@mammadough.co.uk
 website: http://www.mammadough.co.uk/

Open: Wednesday to Sunday – 12:00 to 10:00 pm

Mamma Dough have recently opened their second branch on Coldharbour Lane. We thought that the refurbishment work wasn’t quite complete and that the interior does feel somewhat unfinished. But after looking at the website we realise this was the design and that their place in Honor Oak also has the almost finished look. Stripped wooden floors, tables and chairs are scattered in the former pub on Coldharbour Lane past Brixton Village towards Camberwell. There is a bar and well sited pizza oven so you can see all that is going on. Its light and airy with large windows.

md03Mamma Dough’s bread and butter is their pizza. They offer a decent range of thin-crust sour-dough pizzas with several regularly changing specials. They also provide a gluten-free version, with the toppings served on a bed of cannellini beans. We ordered a pizza each and had some very tasty mixed olives while we waited for our mains to arrive.

We went for a ‘Winter Goat’ with goat’s cheese, caramalised onions, olives, and walnuts; a ‘Lorena’ with squash, feta, pine nuts, and rosemary; and a ‘Jon Bon Chovy’ with anchovy, chilli, capers, olives, and parsley. They didn’t take long to arrive. The pizzas were great, both tasty and very filling. When they arrived piping hot and altogether and we thought we would never be able to finish them – we did but that left us with no room for dessert.

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Mamma Dough also offer a selection of wines and local bottled beers and make up their own ginger ale.

Although this restaurant had just opened the staff were well organised and checked several times whether we were ok. The meal was well-priced with the bill coming to £10.00 per head including a couple of beers. We debated how they compare with our long-term favourites Franco Manca. They are certainly in the same class, while being more comfortable as a place and, at least at present, there’s no waiting around.

 

Eat in Brixton Favourite Restaurant 2015 – THE RESULT

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Choosing a favourite restaurant is really tough with so many choices and our readers thought so too. It was really close in our first endless list of restaurants so we produced a final shortlist based on your choices. Here it was neck and neck between Yum-D, Cornercopia, Shrub and Shutter and the Donostia Social Club.

But we didn’t need to have any second preferences at the final. We had a Jeremy Corbyn-style victory with an overwhelming 64% to ………… Donostia Social Club … well done. We’ll be round with the certificate. Keep up the high standards for the next year and we are sure you will be seeing us again soon.

Shortlist – Favourite Restaurant in Brixton 2015

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Shortlist – Favourite Restaurant in Brixton 2015

So it is still neck and neck for four of our choices, Donostia Social Club, Yum-D, Cornecopia and Shrub and Shutter. We have therefore opened up a new poll to determine who will be the ultimate winner! This poll is open until next Monday – when the winner will be announced.

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A short bus ride away 5. – Camberwell Arms

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65 Camberwell Church Street, Camberwell, London SE5 8TR telephone 020 7358 4364 enquiries@thecamberwellarms.co.uk

This is a pub with gastronomy, scrubbed wooden floors and tables and chairs to match its dark interior. The restaurant is at the back and if you can book before 8.00pm then you are guaranteed the table for a number of hours. They do not take bookings on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, when it is first come first served and it does get packed as it did on the Wednesday evening of our visit.

The menu consists of “snacks”, starters, main courses with extra veg and dessert and there are enough options to merit a visit by a large party if you want to try, or at least see, most dishes. We couldn’t resist ordering a couple of the pork fat with scotch bonnet on toast. This was at least 4 largish pieces to be shared amongst the four guests. It wasn’t as greasy or as hot as I had feared and would have been great as a snack with a beer. We then decided to be sensation seekers and chose the fried lamb’s tongue and hummus with some chickpeas and pepper too (yes it is not the lettuce it was fried lamb’s tongue) and this turned out to be delicious. The meat was succulent and I would order it again.ca03

We then chose mostly meat – Slow cooked Featherblade served on sautéed Chard, rainbow chard stems, roasted tomatoes and parmesan (although one of us refused the parmesan). The other two ordered Quail with Turkish style beans and tzatsiki and Masala monkfish, chickpeas, courgettes, almonds and yoghurt. All were hearty sizes and a couple of us failed to finish. The two Italian guests agreed that parmesan definitely wasn’t needed on the Featherblade. The monkfish was really delicious and was spicy but not overwhelmingly hot. The quail was also up to the same standard.

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Finally we had enough room for two of us to have watermelon sorbets and the other two to have coffee. The sorbets were  pink, not too sweet but strongly flavoured and left a fresh feeling after our very  meaty meal. One Italian guest particularly wanted to mention the espresso was good and he certainly doesn’t say that often. With the addition of guest beers, a glass of wine and the service , the bill came to £106.36 which for the quality (and quantity) of the food we thought was really good value.

Favourite Restaurant Poll 2015

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So our 4th birthday was a couple of days ago but in keeping with tradition we decided to do another poll to see what the best restaurant in Brixton is. Just to be clear we are only including those that we have reviewed – there are so many popping up every week it’s hard to keep up now so apologies if we haven’t made it to your fave yet. Comment below with any suggestions for places that we should visit!

Poll will end Friday 4th September so get your votes in soon!

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That’s It Restaurant

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126 Acre Lane

London SW2 5RJ

Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner

In addition to those restaurants in the centre of Brixton there are those that ought to be described as “off the well beaten track. This is one of them.

We’ve been walking up and down Acre Lane for more than thirty years and never spotted this place before. Maybe it’s new but it lurks behind the bus shelter and, at first glance, might be taken as just another greasy spoon. But it has bigger ambitions, offering “original grilled food” and claiming “The Genuine Portuguese Taste”. Our interest was sparked when we spotted the tables set with wineglasses and napkins. Even more when we saw it had handwritten menus offering a wide range of Portuguese specialties. Continue reading →