Anyone who knows us well, knows how much we enjoy and appreciate good food!
Like any cosmopolitan city; Lagos restaurants are a reflection of that. First you notice the obvious absence of the American fast food outlets as we all know it.
Second you rely mostly on word of mouth and on the Lagos guide for expats to find different restaurants. So in the last four weeks, we tried and tested some of them. They are all expensive when you think rapport qualite/prix.
The first place we tried was the Goodies restaurant in Victoria Island. It is attached to the Goodies supermarket. The menu is Lebanese with a number of continental dishes on the menu. The shawarma sandwish is very tasty but comes at 6 Dollars.... Personally; I would describe it as a snack bar. It is a good address for take away meals.
For Indian food we enjoyed Spice Bar, opposite Park n Shop supermarket. The concept and the design is based on a town diner however the service is very slow. You order your food using an items checklist. The portions are big and very tasty. We liked it so much, we have been there twice already...
For Thai food, we loved Red in Ikoyi on Awolowo road. The Thai restaurant manager and the Thai chef are on hand to offer you delicious and authentic dishes. Red has a lounge bar attached to it and is normally busy with both foreigners and Nigerians.
For Italian; we were advised by a colleague to try Piccolo Mondo. The closest thing about being Italian is its name and a number of dishes on the menu. The food orders are served in large red plates. It is cool hangout that turns into a night club after 10 or 11 pm; perhaps that is why it is popular.
The closest you can get to a five stars modern bistro is Cafe Royal on Victoria Island. It is refreshing to find such an outlet. The menu offers a large selection of dishes and drinks. Its service is quick and efficient. The restaurant has a wonderful terrace. Attached to the Cafe; you find the Royal pastry and bakery shop where we tasted the best croissants so far.
For Nigerian food, I am told the real one is sold on the streets. I have not tried that yet. I tasted the Suya at the office canteen; which is Nigeria's version of Satay with lots of cashew nuts.
There are many more restaurants in the city but we have not had the time to try them yet.
In general most people entertain at home; or as we say in Arabic play Bayt Byout!
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4 comments:
Thought there should be quite a Lebanese community in Nigeria, true? When I went to Kampala, Uganda, one of the best restaurants in town was run by a Lebanese gentleman...was fun to go there and have good food and shisha :)
Pretty much all of those restaurants and the majority of others not mentioned in Lagos are run by the Lebanese. There is a large Lebanese population that owns a gret number of stores and operates almost all of the nightclub/restaurant/bar locations in Lagos.
You can get the TIME OUT NIGERIA which has a list of a tonne of restaurants. You can get it from Terra Kulture (which serves Nigerian food)TK can be found on Tiyamu Savage in V.I
(http://www.terrakulture.com/about.html)
Other African restaurants are..Yellow Chilli's which is amazing...can't vouch for the rest as I have never tried them (Jevenik, Mama Cass etc)
Chinese restuarants (Pearl Garden, Saipan, Takeaway at MegaPlaza are all pretty good, there's also Marco Polo which is okay. For Japanese there is Bonsai, Mayumi at the Oriental Hotel. The Sky bar restaurant at Eko hotel does fantastic food, but the prices are rather high. For Italian there is Il Soriso, Villa Medici. If you like Cafe Royal you will likely like Cactus on Ozumba Mbadwe. There are also a few other cafe's such as Robert's cafe, Ice cream Factory (off Adeola Hopewell). For pizza there is Debonairs on Adeola Odeku, St Elmos on Awolowo Rd.
The Time Out Magazine will help you out, but there's a few restaurants just to keep you going.
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