Faha’s Kitchen vs. This Café

Now this was something I never expected, I firstly want to give a hat tip to Jennifer one of my FB friends and also part of the FB group TW Foodies for introducing Faha to me. I would never have found out about this without your help.

Hands up, if you are familiar with the cuisine of The Gambia.  Yeah, you didn’t see that one coming did you?  My guess is that for the vast majority of Westerners, and Asians,  African food goes as far as Moroccan, South African and (at a push) Ethiopian. How many can visualize where it is on the map?

I have no shame in admitting to being very much in the dark until I tried this.

Faha is a Gambian lady working out of Zhonghe and currently only offers deliveries, and at the time of writing had been running the kitchen for three weeks after the birth of her daughter. Though I myself am not religious, Faha is a Muslim and thus, all her food is halal, which is a boon for the many Muslims we have in Taiwan. There is no FB presence yet, but that’s something she is working on. As dining alone is not something I wanted to do again, I roped in my cohorts over at This Café to join in. They had previously given me the lowdown on Santorini Souvlaki across the road (my first installment) Jed the owner, is pretty adventurous when it comes to food, he recently had the chance to eat Ethiopian food via his wife’s colleague’s husband who is Ethiopian (say that out loud, it makes more sense than in print- damn, I’d kill to get acquainted with that guy- I saw the photos). Jed had previously been a software engineer or something, before giving it up four years ago to start his coffee shop. Also along for the ride was Apple, a former model, who has worked there since the place opened.  Lovely people, both of them. And they know their coffee.

I wasn’t expecting to meet her today, but Faha herself came with the meal. There is a set meal for each day, and as we ate on a Thursday- it was benechin that was the order of the day. Absolutely no preconceptions from any of us but, flipping heck fire minds were blown, it was ridiculously delicious. As you can see from the picture at the top there, it looks suspiciously like Chinese fried rice with beef, but saying that would do it no justice. There is a hint of spice in there somewhere in the background, but doesn’t in any way build or overwhelm. The portions were massive and it is shockingly cheap. I polished off mine, Jed had promised his wife he would save her some but was finding it too moreish and Apple had eaten a fair bit before remembering she had told her boyfriend she was bringing some home. I returned for my morning latte on Friday and boyf and wife respectively had both enjoyed what they had eaten.

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Eating in the small environment of This Café, all the old Aunties, the software engineering types from Gigabyte and HTC around the corner, everybody asked what it was. When we told them, every single person was incredulous. The menu got passed around to about 15 people before I left.

Please show this lady some love, she deserves to get famous. If the Thursday menu is anything to go by, and I’m sure it is, you cannot go wrong.

Oh and This Cafe’s address New Taipei City, Xindian District, 文化路No. 2 這咖啡

I also had a latte- 65NT

That’s lucky seven!