On one Friday after work, Mrs Hen went to East Street Market to buy her supply of African foods for the weekend and the week ahead. She wanted to show me a store that sold “African fast food”, basically the food you would see in an African home.

This store Agege Bread, I think, has been around for a year or so. The popular takeaway foods I believe are the African foods. Although one could cook these at home, some would prefer to buy it already cooked and ready to eat… Most of the African families I know can cook, so I’m quite lucky. ^_^

Mrs Hen said I should try out the pies, so I did… the chicken pie is not like the ones you see in Gregs, it’s stuffed with ground chicken meat, there’s no creamy sauce inside, so it’s all meatly packed.

The one thing I saw most people buy was this sweet bread. It’s not very, very sweet, but sweet enough. Mrs Hen suggested this should be ate at breakfast time, toasted, and served with scrambled eggs and fried plantain which is what I did (see below ^_^). This bread is also made without eggs, and surprisingly doesn’t mold that easily! Wow!

I also bought this fish pie, which was quite dry… it also tasted fishy… ¬_¬” Didn’t eat it… sorry…

It’s time to eat something different… Well not so different but I hardly go to African restaurants so might as well…

Located on the Old Kent Road are many shops and restaurants. You just have to find the restaurants as they don’t stand out like lots of restaurants do in London. Miss Pinky and I were baby shopping… she’s due soon (another three months to go!!) and we actually stopped by this place called Afrikiko to look at the menu then go shopping again and finally came back. We were actually going to go and eat something Korean or Chinese but wanted something different. So Afrikiko it was as Miss Pinky often came here and knew the food… I think she was craving African food.

I think I was the only Chinese person there but apparently there was another Asian about. The people there were probably surprised to see an oriental woman there. ^_^ I like food people!

So we went through the menu. There’s a lot of choice and there were things that I had never heard of or had heard of but needed more explanation like kenkey and fufu… African food names that sound weird. I stuck to what I knew.

Miss Pinky ordered something she knew which is called fufu with meat. Fufu is a staple food and it is made out of yam. It’s a white blob as it’s mashed up which you can see in the next picture. You basically eat it with your hands and so they actually give you a bowl of water and soap to clean your hands. I’ve seen Miss Pinky eat this stuff before so quite used to her digging in.

Miss Pinky had to take the rest home as it was too much… she explained to me how Africans don’t know their portion sizes and so they dish out as much as one could handle…

I chose something I knew which often Mrs Hen served me when I go to hers to eat. Jollof rice is basically rice cooked with spices and tomatoes. I don’t know the cooking process but it’s one of my favourites so I never tire of jollof rice. With it came some chicken because I didn’t know what to have with it. Miss Pinky explained to me that African restaurants are not big on chicken as it is often cooked at home but it’s something that I’m used to.

We ordered one more dish which was fried plantain with meat. Fried plantain is my most favourite African dish. I think every African I know loves the stuff! The meat is fried beef – Miss Pinky said they boil it and fry it I think. It came in a salty spicy sauce which the plantain went well with.

According to Miss Pinky this place gets really busy at night (the clubbing part)… so go early if you want to enjoy your food!

My geeky rating: 4.5/5

– Not an over the top restaurant and feels very local

– Big portions

– Nice service

– Food took too long to come out 😦 (that’s my only complaint)

Address: 871 Old Kent Rd, London, SE15 1NX

Tel: 020 7732 4041