Anyone that knows me knows i love my food, but it's not just about the consuming, for me it's about the theatre of it - the flavours and textures, and how it's prepared and served. I'm genuinely interested in how it all comes together, probably so that I can somehow replicate it or at the very least, be influenced by it in my own cooking. Travelling for me was always going to be partly about cultural cuisine and to that end, the food in Senegal has been a revelation.
Our first week in Dakar was a cacophony of street noise and heat as you would expect in a capital city in Africa, and as with every major city that is familiar with tourism, there are places you can go to get a burger and fries, and a pizza joint every other road, but there are also plenty of places where you can get more traditional food. Having just come from Cape Verde, where we found it more common to get western/european food, Senegal has been refreshing on the cuisine front.
Largely stew based in some form and served with rice and vegetables (occasionally chips), the meals are tasty and hearty. They tend to use Beef, Chicken or fish, though vegetarian options are not as easy to find. Everything we've eaten has been good - the cuts of meat can be a little tough sometimes, but in general we've not had a problem.
We did buy a burger from a very modern place in Dakar called 'Planet kebab' and it was such a mistake. One evening in Dakar, we just thought we'd have a change and pop into this vibrant looking fast food joint. We both ordered double cheeseburgers with fries and a coke. The food we received was so small and was disappointing in taste and texture. We both left hungry and out of pocket - the burger meals had been the equivalent of £7.50 each, where a traditional senegalese dish would be no more than £5 in the majority of city restaurants and you would be full after eating. It taught as a lesson! >> For those that are interested in food, see the bottom of the page for more detail on some of the Senegalese dishes we have tried.
After a week in Dakar we travelled north to Saint-Louis. The bus left at 3pm, so the hotel driver took us to the Bus station in the centre of the city (took over 30 minutes to travel the 8km) and dropped us at the side of a large sandy square at about 2pm. We picked up our bags and wandered over to the canopy under which people were sitting and took stock of the buses parked up and realised quickly that while they were parked, there wasn't anything to indicate destination or time of departure and there were a lot of buses.
We were travelling on the Dem Dikk bus. The Dem Dikk is a brand name and is attributable to the big coach style bus that is common in Europe. This is by far the most comfortable and affordable way to travel to Saint-Louis. It costs the equivalent of £7.50 per person and is reported to take between 4 and 4.5 hours.
At 2:30pm, a wooden stand appeared next to the closest bus indicating Saint-Louis. Our tickets told us the seat number and the driver used this to put a put a post it note on our bags in the hold of the bus. We boarded, found our seats and settled in for our first foray into African public transport and the opportunity to see more of Senegal by road.
The bus was fairly worn and pretty filthy inside to be fair, but it was roomy and there was air conditioning which made the journey comfortable. The first hr on the bus was literally us just trying to get out of the city as the traffic was awful. Hawkers walked in amongst the cars selling tangerines and peanuts, taking advantage of the trapped potential customers. And then the suburbs passed by until we were on the highway and heading north east. The roads were pretty good, but it was slow going at times. We passed through small towns and tiny villages, areas where there were tens of street vendors selling fruit, or homewares at the side of the road on established stalls facing the street.
We passed the scene of a car accident that clearly had happened perhaps an hour before and it was a difficult sight with serious injury to several involved. A long way from a town or city, the injured could only be comforted by local people. It really brought home to me the challenges that people here live with every day. And it made me feel incredible lucky that we live in a society where the infrastructure provides for medical, police or fire assistance and whilst acknowledging the current emergency ambulance response challenges in the UK, we can be assured of help if we need it.
The bus journey actually took 6.5hrs, so we were tired when we finally pulled into the town of Saint-Louis, where we were surprised to see that it was raining. We hopped off the bus, grabbed our bags and quickly located a taxi that could understand my rudimentary french (not all of them can). We agreed a price (a complete rip off, but I wanted to just get where we were going) and jumped in the open door of the cab. I reached out to pull the door closed and managed to rip off the interior of the door lining in the process. The driver told me not to worry and sort of propped it up and closed the door anyway. It dawned on me that we'd gotten into one of 'those' cabs, the ones you're supposed to avoid! lol It was then that I noticed the taxi already had a passenger in the front seat - as is the way here. Sometimes you share and the driver gets paid twice for the same journey. The taxi driver had no idea where our hotel was but I could see it on the map and I steered him left here, right there and eventually we found it.
Chez Titi. And what a warm reception from the owner Babacar. We settled into our room and cooked some instant noodles in the little kitchen and fell asleep quite easily. We woke on Sunday to a new kind of wake up call - goats bleating. Very close. It was a couple of days before I quite figured out that they were being kept next door in part of the neighbours house - actually the room next to where we're sleeping! I figured this out when I was taking photos from the terrace on the roof!
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About the plate of food you'll get...
The rice is a short narrow stubby variety that at a glance looks like cous cous. They grow rice in Senegal so I have no doubt that it's the local produce. The vegetables are always cut in chunks and served as a mix of root vegetable pieces and green beans. usually the vegetables are cooked and then covered in garlic butter or some other garlic sauce. Very tasty. A few of the tasty meals sampled so far...
Ceebu Wex (Garlic stuffed fish)
Soft piece of garlic stuffed fish, served skin on with a form of flavoured fried rice, rough cut local vegetables and a series of cold condiments or chutneys; something green, slightly sour and citrussy, something tomato based and reddish brown but a sour edge, and a
paste that looked a little like wholegrain mustard with a flavour I couldn't place, but all tasted great with the plate of food. The rice they use is a really short grain and not plump like risotto or paella rice, more narrow. At a glance it could be mistaken for some
form of couscous. The vegetables were somewhat recognisable, but there were definitely some that were new to me: sweet potato, carrot, potato, cabbage, aubergine, a piece of strangely shaped squash, some form of parsnip or other woody tubar, something very pale in colour and soft with no real taste to speak of. I think the vegetables were boiled perhaps with a bird chilli as they had all taken on a slight kick and a soft yellow bird chilli was nestled in amongst them. Instead of a pile of one type of vegetable, they serve one chunk of each.
Poulet Yassa
delicious. I think the trick to this dish must be the marinade and I have no doubt that it takes longer to prepare than it seems when plated up.
Thiou Viande (Beef)
We both really enjoyed this. Principally a slow cooked stew of tomatoes, beef and onions with garlic and chilli and a few carrot pieces, thickened with potato. It has a lovely rich hearty tomato and beef flavour, slightly spicy, and is of course served with the senegalese white rice.
Lotte Pannee
Lotte means Monkfish. Pannee essentially means 'in breadcrumbs'. So Lotte Pannee is chunks of white fish covered in bread crumbs and fried. It's not flavoured with anything unusual so it tastes as you would expect - simple and delicious. It's mostly served with mixed garlicky vegetables and rice. When i had it, the mixed vegetables had been cooked and then tossed in a little creamy garlic, butter sauce. The whole dish was delicious.
Mafe Viande
This is a dish made from ground peanuts to form a flour that is used to flavour and thicken a stew. It tastes a little spicy, and nutty of course, like the bitter red skin of the peanut. The stew is usually made with leeks or onion and beef or sometimes chicken. Served with plain rice. It's a very tasty village dish.
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