The Dish On Dakar

By LIM LI MIN Sunday, July 17, 2005
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Judging by the number of billboards, Senegal's best-selling food product is stock cubes — but if you're persistent, you'll encounter plenty of zesty meals there without instant bouillon. And if you're a soul-food fan, you're in luck: by virtue of the slave trade, Senegalese cuisine was one of the key influences on African-American cooking.

Senegal's Atlantic coastline ensures an abundance of seafood — grouper, monkfish and sea bream are common — while peanuts, millet and cassava are harvested from the central savanna area. Given Morocco's proximity, couscous is almost as widespread as rice — so are baguettes and Dijon mustard, legacies of French colonial rule. Sample this melting pot at Chez Mimi, tel: (221) 823 9788, or Keur Ndeye, tel: (221) 821 4973, both in the capital, Dakar.

But if you want something that's all Senegalese, order the national dish of tieboudienne — a spicy fish and tomato rice — and a round of attaya, which is tea with mint. Served in tiny cups, attaya is a generations-old ritual. Best of all, there's not a scary flavor enhancer in sight.