Not a restaurant critic

But I do love to eat out. Have just been to Chishuru, a West African restaurant on Great Titchfield street. Husbant had shown me the review in the FT and I took that as a big hint. It was fully booked for his birthday but luckily it’s Connor’s birthday a few weeks after so we were able to celebrate tonight. This is somewhere I would go back to and eat everything all over again.

I had a delicious Sango cocktail to begin which had a big kick at the end of each sip. It is a tasting menu which they were very happy to adjust seemlessly for pescatarian/vegetarian. So three small plates to start, a choice of main, and desserts that were off-the-scale yummy. Of the three starters, the first one was a rice cake with a green chilli sauce (the abridged version) which was my favourite; my second favourite was a peppersoup. Husbant seems to break out in a sweat just at the mention of scotch bonnet, so he was suffering a little as the heat began to build. The third starter plate was a bean pattie with a tomato and some sauce – am not a massive bean person. Red beans or white beans, worst of all baked beans. It’s hard to move on from the word bean when it’s mentioned in a menu. Just my thing. It was delicious but overshadowed by what had gone before. We all had very tingly tongues by the end of the starters but in a very good way.

Husbant and I chose the mafe for main. He had had it cooked for him while working as a teaching assistant in Bordeaux by a good friend and encouraged me to try and cook it. I found a recipe online and made it a few times many years ago – it’s a sort of lamb stew with lashings of peanut butter (again, abridged version). But oh my. The mafe was incredible. I would eat it every day. The lamb was perfect and the sauce – really the sauce was delicious.

The mains also came with fried plantain – again I love fried plantain and this was the best i have ever had – some rice with loads of ginger, spring onions, herbs and a plate of pickled cucumber, cabbage and other deliciousness. Of course I had to try the fish which was also delicious and the celeriac. Was so good.

Finally, when we had eaten every morsel, the desserts came. Two of them. One was a special – it was a sorbet with scotch bonnet but the heat didn’t come until the end and it was a warmth rather than a massive headkick, served on a bed of plantain mousse flowers. Wow. The second dessert was a soursop ice cream with scorched marshmallow.

We had a lovely bottle of Fleurie to wash everything down which somehow was at precisely the right temperature to feel cooling. Magical.

The whole meal was so good – the staff are brilliant. And don’t forget to go the loos. They have lovely soap and hand lotion, which I never fail to mix up when I am washing my hands. Even though I study the labels and try really hard to get it right.

For proper descriptions of what we ate check out the website. And if you need someone to go with, I’m free!

https://www.chishuru.com/food-and-drink