First off, a big round of apple drinks and a thank you to Boo Lion and the TW Foodies facebook page for highlighting this place for me. I can’t say it would ever have crossed my mind I’d find this food here; we went in with absolutely no information.
Senegal is not exactly a place on my radar either. I think any previous things I’d heard about it came from my B-boying days and my (very brief) diversion into French language hip hop or la rap maghrébin (I know Senegal is not Arab Maghreb, but there was a lot of crossover because of French speaking North Africans) I remember hearing some hip hop in Wolof but those days are sooo distant in my memory I can’t recall names. They also won the opening game of the 2002 World Cup against France, the previous winners, and went on to the quarter finals. Other than that, unless there is a secret Senegalese community lurking in Taipei that EVERYONE knows about, and everyone stops talking about it when I enter a room, I am pretty much in the dark.
This place is a pop up joint, only open on Mondays and Thursdays 12-8pm, inhabiting the same space that is used by Yuca, who I talked about ages ago and do Brazilian food in the evenings. That makes it a little difficult to plan around but as I’m perennially underworked (about to change), that doesn’t affect me too much. With me this week was Boo Lion who is Watson to my Sherlock. This is a pretty accurate description because Boo is pretty clever, and he also has a bad leg (though not from Afghanistan). I am also quite erratic, but don’t play the violin nor alas, am I a cocaine addict.
One of the advertised foods on the TW Foodies page (I recommend it if you aren’t a member already) was vegan, which blew up his skirt so he was on to it before me. It turned out in fact that today’s menu was all vegetarian and I would put money on the fact (maybe as much as 1USD) that even the most meat loving of people would be at least satisfied with what they received if they were to go veggie.
As the space is very small (two seats outside and a kitchen) I can’t really comment on the décor, it was an alley in a Taiwanese city. So a lot of scooters either parked or zooming past, old women shouting at someone you weren’t sure was the target (if at all), and mystery stains on the road. Perfect Taiwan basically.
Sam, the guy running it is Senegalese but grew up in the US, I didn’t press where, and he runs the place with his wife. At the moment as I said above it is only Monday and Thursday with the odd Saturday which is announced on social media in the days before. They are looking to hopefully do this permanently if they get enough business, and me and Boo agreed that yep, what they have there is tip top.
We got there at 12pm so if he was going to prepare anything else today, I’m not sure, but what we got was vegetarian fataya ( think empanadas) , which were filled with mushroom and had a bit of spice to them, bissap which is a drink made from hibiscus and bit like kombucha, and the main event thiou which is a kind of curry thingy made of sweet potatoes, carrots, zucchini (Urrgh, too many Americanisms in my language now) and rice. All food was served with a slightly spicy sauce that I’m sure could be made hotter, and sour cream.
The fatayas (I dunno if it is pluralized) come in orders of three (100NT), we got four though and were the highlight for Boo. They were just spicy enough without overpowering, and had that feeling of volume that you were eating meat, and given enough that could be a good meal on their own. Definitely having them again, so will he, as he works nearby.
In between the chat about the latest un-happenings in our middle aged lives, time travel, novels and how we know so few Australians in Taipei, we drank the bissap (55NT). This now ranks highly on my unofficial list of “effnik” drinks. Somewhere between mouth and the wall of your throat, it goes from being very sweet to conning you into believing it is going to be fizzy. This sentence probably doesn’t make much sense, but this is something we both agreed on and I’m sure if you have it yourself you will know what I’m trying to point out. I drank mine a bit too quickly because I could have done with a bit more when we came to the thiou (pronounced something like “ch”).
The thiou (180NT-I think) was very tasty too. Of all the curry, and curry-like things I’ve had over the last year or so I’d say this one was different enough to be memorable as the spice didn’t take over and you could taste other components. It wasn’t spicy for spiciness sake and it added to it. Once again, it was a pity there wasn’t more of it.
I had a crepe (90NT) for dessert, very good but unpictured as I figured we have all had that before and wasn’t particularly dramatic. All in all it came to 660NT for two people. Good cheap eating and in a student area too.
I really do recommend you try this, it isn’t often you have African food in Taiwan (I had Gambian as some of you may recall, and Moroccan- but that is world’s away from what I had today and shows Africa has some very different things going on there), and Sam really knows what he is doing. I want these guys to do well and even though I have no real influence in the world, I want to do my bit to help them get recognized. Also, I want to try their other stuff.
Very rare that I’ll promote someone like this but you can find them at
https://www.instagram.com/chez_les_diatta/ and Facebook under Chez_les_diatta
Best way to get there: Taipower Building MRT Exit 3, turn right and walk down Shida road, it is in the alley behind the 50 tea shop, less than three minutes’ walk.
52 Cuisines? 