Review: Nubia Café in St. Louis
Given the intermediate size of St. Louis, we have a surprising number of African and Caribbean restaurants: At last count, there were five African restaurants (heavy on Ethiopian) and a smattering that have Caribbean cuisine. The Hon. Henry E. Iwenofu (he gets the title by serving as a councilman in North County) described his Nubia Café as a place to enjoy international music and upscale West African-Caribbean fusion cuisine. Iwenofu’s new restaurant-club – located on an up-and-coming strip of Delmar known as the Design District – is the only one that recognizes the simpatico connection between the two regions (spicy, starchy, sweet ’n’ sour foods rooted in the global spice routes of European colonization).
First, it should be noted that West African cuisine is different from North African food, which draws on its Mediterranean influence. Nor is it Ethiopian. The common denominators of Nubia’s polyglot cuisine are flavorful, pungent spices and Christiana (aka “Mama”), Iwenofu’s mother and the cook of the family. Mama hails from Nigeria and has family connections in the Caribbean. True to the African tradition (and the Southern soul-food tradition, for that matter) of passing down recipes orally, she cooks from memory and experience. (During one visit with a friend of mine who once lived in Nigeria, Mama invited her to come back sometime to learn a few dishes.)
It should be also noted that even for the adventuresome gastronome, West African food and its riot of strong flavors can be an acquired taste. My least favorite dish was a spicy beef stew flavored with dried fish and thickened with okra, whose slimy earthiness has never captured my palate. It was a small serving and one of eight that came on the Nubia sampler plate, the best way to tour West African cuisine at a very reasonable price. Real yams, not the sweet potato variety, are at the center of the yam portage (or porridge), a simple dish of the boiled tubers and steamed greens. Other highlights on the plate were jerk chicken and chicken curry, both extremely flavorful, though competitive for our attention. The kitchen can be heavy-handed with the salt, as was the case with the otherwise excellent spicy smashed kidney bean dish. A couple could easily combine two appetizers with the sampler plate and leave satisfied.
An appetizer of traditional Nigerian akara, delicious deep-fried white bean fritters, came with the house “salsa.” The salsa is really piri-piri, an incendiary dipping condiment made from garlic, chiles, onion, and lemon juice or vinegar that’s ubiquitous at Nubia. Our suya appetizer – a meat kabab (choice of beef or chicken) coated with a mixture of ground peanuts and chile pepper – used a tough stew beef and therefore didn’t impress as much. The same beef comes with the pepper soup – a simmering from which the meat would have benefited – but we ordered ours the traditional West African way, with goat meat. It is one of those defining soups, a soup that makes you obsessed with chasing down the flavors: fiery chile pepper and mint predominate, but what were those “African spices” the menu touted? It didn’t matter because we greedily lapped it up, only wishing for more of that addictive broth to help it live up to its “soup” moniker.
Iwenofu is from Nigeria, so traditional stews are prevalent. As with all stews at Nubia, you can choose chicken, beef or goat as the meat. I like goat, so when faced with the option, goat it was for the egusi (ground melon seeds), a strongly seasoned tomato sauce-based stew with a funky, earthy flavor profile of spinach and vegetables. Jollof rice is everywhere in West Africa, mostly, I suspect, because it is a full banquet on a plate: rice, tomatoes, onion, vegetables, meat and savory-spicy seasoning. Nubia’s version is as delicious as the festive dish looks on the plate – and a good introduction to diners taking baby steps toward African food.
Though Mama consulted at North County’s African Palace restaurant when it first opened a few years back, Nubia Café is Iwenofu’s only venture into the restaurant world, and it shows at times. One side of the menu lists African dishes and the other Caribbean, but many African items are repeated on the Caribbean side, causing double-takes and confusion, especially for diners new to the cuisines. The lack of experience means occasional ill-timed meals, slow drink orders or long waits between courses. And because Mama runs the kitchen, you get what she makes; when she’s done, she’s done. Later in the evening, patrons are ready to turn dinner into a dance party, but the service needs sharpening if he expects larger dinner-only crowds. Nonetheless, a city can never have too many ethnic restaurants like Nubia Café.
