food
Valentine Cascarino
At first I was convinced it was a hangover that triggered the feeling I was back in Paris. But when I returned to the newly established Congolese Restaurant in Yeoville two weeks later, French tourists dining with me felt the same way.
With kwasa kwasa music constantly vibrating in the background, the European map on the bar counter, the antique Congolese curios and paintings, any Parisian visiting the restaurant for the first time may, for a nanosecond, think he’s back home, in one of the many African restaurants there.
However, despite the languages spoken by the guests including French, Portuguese, Swahili and English there was one language all of them understood: that of the deliciously strange and nutritive Congolese cuisine.
Says Corrine Langlois, the Congolese lady running the restaurant: “Yeoville is a cosmopolitan environment and the restaurant was opened to cater for fans of Congolese food, as well as those who may never have the chance of travelling abroad to taste it.”
She says public response has been enthusiastic despite Yeoville’s high crime rate and the restaurant has done all it can to improve security.
The food is packed with protein and carbohydrates, and it’s filling. Langlois says many Congolese follow ancestral tradition and eat only once a day, and solid food will keep them until the next meal.
Particularly sought after is saka saka, a soup made from fresh, pounded cassava leaves. The resultant soft pulp is simmered for two hours before fresh fish, eggplant, peanut butter, palm oil, onions, bay leaves and red pepper are added. The mixture is cooked for another hour, left to cool and served with fried plantains, rice, cassava or cooked mealie meal or bread.
Another favourite is mabote, a dish featuring a highly flavoured and fiery gravy. Fish, meat or chicken is wrapped with garlic, green and black pepper, onion and other spices of choice, with a drop of water and placed inside a pot. It’s traditionally wrapped in plantain or banana leaves, but with the scarcity of these leaves in the cosmopole, aluminium foil is used as a substitute. It’s usually served hot with cassava, yams or plantains.
Viande de brousse (bouillon a la pte d’arachide), or game meat cooked in groundnut soup, is a delicacy that might offend conservationists. But most of the game meat, including monkeys, porcupines and crocodiles, is imported from Congo, Cte d’Ivoire or other Central African countries. The meat, which is usually smoked or sun-dried, is cooked and served in the saka saka style.
Poulette la mouambe is a protein-rich sauce, oily with a nutty taste and definitely worth trying. Its condiments are a type of Congolese palm nuts that are cracked, pounded to dust and used in making sauce. Chicken and salt are added to the mixture with other spices and left to cook for 30 minutes, with the occasional addition of palm oil. The resultant neither-sweet-nor-sour sauce is served also with cassava, plantain or rice.
For those not used to Congolese cookery, a good alternative at the Congolese Restaurant is brochette boeuf or beef kebab. The kebab is marinated in lemon, white pepper, onion and garlic for about six hours before being grilled or roasted.
Traditionally made Congolese manioc may taste a bit dreary, but it is a mainstay. Cassava is soaked in water and left to soften for several days. It’s then grated into fine grains and a thin portion of the paste spread on a banana leaf, which is tied and cooked in shallow water for four or five hours. Quite solid, it is eaten with peanut butter, sauce or soup.
For starters, there are crabs cooked in white wine, spring onion and garlic; a salad of shrimp, onion, mayonnaise and avocado; or peri peri chicken livers. Also available as side orders or extras are roasted fish or chicken, fried plantain, banana or potato chips.
Pap-and-vleis, stew and rice are available all the time, but for a Congolese meal, booking is essential. The restaurant can accommodate more than 40 people, but parking can be tricky.
The details
The Congolese Restaurant, Piccadilly Centre, Rockey Street, Yeoville (opposite the Shell garage), is open Monday to Thursday, 1pm to midnight, later on weekends. Parking in Hunter Street. Contact Corrine Langlois on Tel: 082413-8965.