EATING MY WAY THROUGH LAGOS PART III: SOME FOODS YOU SHOULD TRY IN LAGOS, NIGERIA

Hello, and welcome to the third and final (for now) installment of the Lagos food series. The Lagos trip might be over, but the good news is it brought inspiration for something new.

I have held out for long enough. I'm finally doing it. Yes, I am adding a "food" category on this blog. There are so many food related things I want to talk about and I can hardly wait to begin. The good thing is I warned you here  that this blog is about a little bit of everything. Plus remember, we are all about doing things that we love, yeah? Every single thing. So that one decade from now, no one is pressuring you about how the decade is about to end and what do you have to show for it. Stop that, people lol.

Anyway, so I love food photography, which is basically just me taking pictures of my food and other people's food.  On Instagram, I noticed I was always posting food stuff and thought to embrace that even further. I have decided not to stop. So I will post more about it here or better still, feature other people's posts and reviews of food and restaurants on here. Woohoo! I want to say I will learn more on the art of food photography but that's not true; I probably won't. Lol. So my pictures will for sure be amateur iPhone pictures of food, if at all lol. There will also be interesting recipes perhaps once a month or once or year? Haha. This also means if you have a restaurant or food review or story from any part of the world and want to write about it, and you need somewhere to post it, hit me! Hahaha.

Anyway, on to the matter of the day. So one final post on food in Lagos, which I hope you enjoy. I either mistakenly deleted some pictures or I just don't have them anymore. I really wanted this to be about places in Lagos that are affordable and most people can buy from. I think to a large extent, the below are and if they are not, it's because most places in Lagos are actually expensive. Please remember, as with part II, that I will try to give my honest opinion as best as I remember. To be honest with you, recording the foods I ate plus the whole experience of going to a restaurant with an aim to not just have a good time, but record that good time sparked the interest of making it a whole thing on the blog. So I'm glad about that. Disclaimer 1: I don't think I am a foodie. At least, I don't think I have an eclectic/diverse enough taste to be called a foodie. Disclaimer 2: This will not be  really be restaurant reviews, I don't have the range for that haha.

Enough with the talking, enjoy!

First on the list is Yellow Chilli. I have eaten at Yellow Chilli before, the one at GRA. And I think it's generally good. At least I love the vibe there. This time around though, there was just something about it I didn't like. For the main course, I had stewed/peppered fish and fries. The fries, I believe needed more salt (but I like salt). The fish was just meh. My friend, E had plantains, Efo (vegetable stew), and shrimp (?). The Efo was really dope except it had no protein: no fish, no ponmo and other such stars of an Efo show. For the appetizer, I had goat meat pepper-soup and that was pretty amazing. E had peppered snails for appetizer; also really amazing!

Stewed fish and fries

Efo, plantain, shrimps (?)

Goat meat pepper soup

Peppered snail

An honorable mention is the coconut doughnut from Shoprite that was mentioned in part one. It is making a comeback because it's really good. Though I eventually became tired of it. So there is that.

Coconut doughnut

The travesty below was from TFC, and blegh. It is apparently called "native rice". They call it some other interesting name. And while it has the potential to be nice, it was drowned in oil. And we all know I hate food with excess oil.

Native Rice

And now to one of my favorite corners in Lagos, Cafe Neo. I did a LOT of dissertating at this coffee shop like I mentioned in part II. I really, really like the place. And bonus is their coffee/beverages are really good. The staff was also really great, which is a rare occurrence in Lagos.

iced mocha or some variant

Take two

Another honorable mention is the one and only Fanmilk SuperYogo that had been rescuing me since secondary school (high school) and is still apparently a life saver in Lagos traffic.

SuperYogo

For the next one, I am not going to say the name of the place because I am almost certain I made the wrong order. BUT see, I am a green smoothie aficionado, which just basically means every single day (except I am traveling), I have a green smoothie/juice. I also have a high tolerance for the most disgusting-looking green goop, BUT what you see below was honest-to-God the most disgusting green smoothie (or drink of any kind) that I ever had.

Yikes

Now on to sweeter things, literally. This gem from Hans and Rene (a self-proclaimed gelato place) was DELICIOUS.

gelato

I got the next photo from a fast food, but I'm not sure which: TFC or Sweet Sensation. Either way, it was pretty dope.

Yum!

Now we are moving on to a touchy subject: pizza. I love pizza as my Instagram would show you but I'm also somewhat of a pizza snob. And I can tell you MOST pizza in Lagos is trash. I will tell you this for free. But I always held out hope because everyone said Debonairs had pretty good pizza. Well, I finally tried Debonairs. It was ok. The toppings combination was lame and very restrictive. Overall, a B minus. Sorry. A good bonus was the ice cream though. It was great, but let's face it, you'd have to try really hard to make ice cream bad.

mediocre pizza

this vanilla swirl though...yum

On to the next: another sweet treat. This time froyo from Pinkberry. If I'm not mistaken, Pinkberry is an American company and we have it all over America. So you probably already know about this. In that sense, it's an honorary mention.

A lifesaver

Okay so now we have  food from a place called South Eatery and Social House; one bougie place in Victoria Island hahah. I have to say, as I think back to many of these places, it's not really the food that is memorable as much as the time spent with my loved ones, you know? In that sense, restaurants are more than just places to eat. They can be an ecosystem, a social chamber for love to thrive, right? Anyway, so yes, I ordered Jambalaya. Ermm...so it was not bad. But it also was not very good. I should mention, it was my first time having Jambalaya (a food native to Louisiana) so it's possible I just don't like Jambalaya. The jury is still out on this. My friends, R and Z had burgers and fries (it was called the Chicken Sammich) and I think they made better choices than me. Ignore the soggy looking fries, they were actually tasty.

Jambalaya

Chicken Sammich

Chapman

Now onto brunch!! I love brunching, again see Instagram haha. So I was excited to get brunch with my friend, E at Orchid Bistro. And let me tell you, my only regret is I had not visited this place earlier. I loved their food. I had waffles, and forget how weird it looks, it tasted really great. The restaurant was also truly a bistro. The ambience, the staff, everything was lovely. The only problem is it's literally tucked away on Isaac John St. and you can pass that road every single day without knowing such a place exists. When E and I got there, we thought we had the wrong address and were literally about turning back. It didn't help that it was raining that day. What the hell was all that rain about anyway? Ugh

Coffee

Waffles and some sad looking apples, Lol

Loved the ambience

Breakfast

E's meal

Our food

This is getting really long, but let's keep going. The next food is from a place in Lekki called Kohinoor. We all had pepper-soup. S had catfish pepper-soup with a side of plantain, E (a different E now LOL) and I had goat meat pepper-soup, with sides of plantains and fries, respectively. S's catfish pepper soup was HUMONGOUS. I mean, it was sorta scary haha. They didn't like their plantains, I remember that. Otherwise, everything was quite good. The ambience was really lovely...and edgy I think. There were motorbikes parked inside the place. And I think it doubled as  a lounge and restaurant.

Feasting

Or breaking bread as E calls it hahah

Pepper-soup, again

Catfish pepper-soup

Yum

Remember my previous frustrations with Ofada? Well, I finally had a great one. And it was basically someone selling close to E's house. Cheap and incredibly cheerful haha.

It was spicyyyyy

The next item is not a food and is mostly an honorable mention. I was with my cousins for most of this trip and every time I went out I would bring some sort of food/gift back for them. So at some point, my seven-year old cousin figured I always used to give him stuff and wanted to reciprocate, which he did in the most seven-year old way: he gave me his juice from his lunchbox. It was the sweetest. Haha

Packed with sugar and some vitamins? LOL

I cannot possibly write about food in Lagos without writing about Small Chops. I don't know how to describe it for my non-Nigerian audience. They are basically finger foods that are appropriately hyped, served in parties, sold after church and just all around fabulous. A decent Small Chops pack/dish/plate should have puff puff, samosa, spring rolls, and some grilled protein. Similar to Small Chops is Asun (grilled goat meat). Man, these are good stuff. E and I bought these after church at Daystar whenever we went. I love Jesus but I gotta say, one huge reason I followed E to this church for several Sundays was for these babies. No shame in my game. Haha.

Small Chops in all her glory

Asun.

And so with that, I round up this excruciatingly long post. Lagos is annoying for several reasons but food is not one of them.

Should I have divided this post into two parts? Probably. But we move.

If you read all the way, you are the real MVP. Too many long posts in a row so I will try my hardest that the next post on this blog is very short.

Thank you for reading, and if you ever try any of these, definitely let me know.

Love,

I