Eating out in Abidjan

There are quite possibly hundreds of international restaurants scattered around Abidjan: French, Italian, Lebanese, Tex-Mex, Indian, Caribbean, Vietnamese, German, American, Japanese (sushi!) and so on. And then there are quite possibly ten times as many maquis, the local inexpensive Ivoirian open air restaurants. At lunch, maquis often offer a few assortments of sauces, along with choice of meat and a choice of rice or attiéké (grated cassava that resembles couscous). Some others may only offer attiéké and braised chicken. For dinner, maquis often offer braised chicken or fish, attiéké, aloco, and/or fries.

About 2-3 times a week, I visit my favorite lunch-time maquis for my favorite meal of Tchép poisson. Tchep is a simple dish of fried rice with a small piece of fish, small scoops of yam, cassava, green leaf sauce, hot sauce, and whatever vegetables they might have on hand. When that is not available, I order kedjenou, chicken simmered with tomatoes and other vegetables, and rice. I often enjoy a side of aloco, fried plantains. All this for about $2.

Once or twice a week, I’ll check out a few international restaurants for dinner. So far, I’ve had delicious crepes and cider, pizza, sushi (yes, and it was delicious!), and Vietnamese dishes. However, they are expensive, but more often than not, well worth it.

Last night, an Ivoirian friend took a few of us out to a local maquis. Upon arrival, a dozen women beckoned us to choose their stands. They stood behind a long table, which was numbered to indicate their stand. Each stand was filled with stacks of raw chicken, large fish, and plantains. We chose stand #2 to grill four chickens and stand #3 to grill five or six whole fish, plus a few sides of attiéké, aloco and fries. The six of us found a table under the cool cloudy night, ordered a few bottles of soda and Flag (the local beer brand) and chatted while waiting for our food.

Traditionally, food is eaten with hands, so we were given a bowl of water and powdered soap to wash our hands at the table. When the food arrived, we realized we ordered too much (we anticipated more friends to join, but they did not show), but we dug in anyway. I reached for the chicken, tore it up with my fingers and mixed it with some attiéké that I mashed into a ball with my hand. Delicious. I then reached for some aloco. It moved. I jumped and let go of the “plantain”. I peered through the dark to identify it and jumped again. A large cockroach. It had flown into the plate of aloco and I had grabbed its tail! Gross! In any other place, I probably would have refused to eat the rest, but we all just laughed and continued eating. The food was much too delicious to let a cockroach deter us. We were more worried about how to finish off four whole chicken and a few large fish. But we did it – almost. We offered a whole fish and some pieces of chicken to a nearby table, and doggy-bagged the rest. At 1am, we left the establishment, briefly contemplating on dancing at the neighboring nightclub, but our full bellies and partial food coma beckoned us instead to head home and sleep.