إلى بورداب لندن و بريطانيا ..بمناسبة حلول شهر رمضان الكريم

Quote: Mandola Restaurant 139-141 Westbourne Grove London W11 2RS 020 72294734 This is the only Sudanese restaurant I have ever been to - and it makes me want to hunt down more. It is of medium size, consisting of two rooms connected by a wooden arch topped with a couple of throwing spears. Interesting Sudanese art covers the walls as well as gourds,bead work and what I think is a wooden crocodile, painted black. Tables are simple and wooden with no covering and lit with red candles. The restaurant does not have a license so you bring your own wine. And guess what? Right next door to the left is an off-license. And guess what again? The prices there are outrageous - including legendary diesel oil Piat D'or at £5 a bottle. However, if you turn right and walk for about two minutes there is a Sainsbury's with a very good and reasonably priced wine selection, so no worries there. Corkage is two pounds. Another good thing about Mandola is that its wine glasses are normal size, not like miniature plunge pools, so if you are driving you can actually work out how much you have drunk and avoid being banned. Excellent. So what is Sudanese food like? Apparently they were occupied by the Turks, among others, for quite a long time so there is a strong Ottoman influence. But their main culinary turn is the peanut. They do wonders with it. I started with a meat and peanut soup, quite spicy, which was novel (to me) and good. My friend had a sort of peanut porrige which was also very tasty together with a mixture of cabbage and - yes - peanuts which shouldn't have worked as a combination but did. It's a different and very more-ish taste. Our mains appeared to be peanut free but they could have been there in the marinades. My main was a chicken kebab and salad and this had a definite middle eastern feel - you can see the Turkish influence - but lightly spiced and with a fresh and tangy overtone. My friend's was lamb which had been marinated in a spicy sauce and which was also delicious. These were accompanied by a fine rice dish. We finished off with Sudanese coffee which comes in a little brown earthenware pot shaped like a miniature lime kiln and which had cardomom in it, which I love, so I was very happy. Clientele are mostly young and fairly noisy with a sprinkling of hoorays but generally well behaved, giving a buzzy friendly atmosphere. Service is a bit hit and miss but veering towards the good. Prices are around £4 for starters and £11 for mains. And they scored maximum points when we asked for water by actually offering tap water without being prompted. Incredible. Harry

ya3ni Alwa7id jadeed fi London, single, and my relationship with cooking look like most of the readers relationship with rocket science!!!

Fi ay zooooool visited this restaurant? q

(عدل بواسطة Emam Hassan on 10-18-2004, 02:43 PM)