Malagasy (=Madagascar) restaurant in Chciago?

Hi, everyone

Does anyone know of a Malagasy restaurant in Chicago? I'm doing a concert at the end of March that has some Madagascar-themed music in it, so I thought it would be nice to include some reception food from the island.

The only time I've ever had Madagascan food was at a little hole-in-the-wall in Paris, which I'm sure would win the Paris equivalent of a GNR (a BRV?). I've never heard of anything similar in Chicago, but I'd love to be proven wrong. I clicked on your link and the concert looks really interesting. I might have to head up there to check it out.

Cool !
Well, hopefully we can get some great food to go with the music, and it'll be even more interesting!

I've had something of a breakthrough here. I haven't been able to find anything in town, so I did the natural thing and emailed the Madagascar consulate looking for tips. The person who responded was very helpful, giving the names of many dishes:

it is very difficult indeed to find any typically Malagasy food in the US. Cooked savory food is simply not part of any restaurant or caterer's offerings that I am aware of -- no romazava, ravitoto or any of the typically Malagasy dishes or accompaniments (lasary etc). The embassy does happen to have a very good Malagasy cook, who creates delicious preparations for the few official functions at the embassy, but she is in Washington DC.

So, with the names of dishes to Google, it's not very difficult to find a bunch of recipes for them (and actually quite a few videos of preparation, which surprised me), and this awesome webpage: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/45c4b/e9c/2/

And also this one http://www.codal-madagascar.com/en/reci ... codal.html -- sample list of ingredients:

a soupspoon of CODAL green peppercorn , the juice of 1 lemon, a little mustard and a lot of fresh cream

Now seriously, don't we all think of sauces this way at heart?

The consulate guy, by the way, recommended that I just go with Madagascar's main exports, vanilla and chocolate. Somehow, that just started the old Bugs Bunny line going through my head: "He don't know me very well, do he?"

An update from the Malagasy consulate:

Me:
... now that you've given me the names of a few dishes, it's actually quite easy to find a bunch of recipes for them on the internet -- some even have videos of the preparation. And I know that there are always issues with having something prepared the "right" way, even with simple recipes; but some of them -- the lasary, for example -- seem almost impossible to get wrong.

Ziad:
then have a look at the preparation of a favorite of mine, lemon lasary,
http://www.fachak.com/lasary-citron-lem ... madagascar
(and never mind about letting it sit for a month, you can try it after a week). This is a
very delicious condiment -- eat only the lemon pieces (the peel is for flavoring only), that
goes very well with (i.e. on top of) a lot of things, including shrimp or seafood fritters
(both of which are quite typically malagasy).

You could also try koba (a very popular sweet snack),
http://www.fachak.com/malagasy-recipe-k ... eanut-cake
(big loafs of koba, wrapped in banana leaves, can be found at street markets all over
madagascar).

Below is the latest bit of Malagasy culinary correspondence. I'm the guy whose material starts with the two >>s. I've decided that -- given this is my first experience with this cuisine, and I'm cooking for other people, I'm going to stick *really* close to the ground and and not have anything heated, meat, anything like that.

Ziad says that these lasaries are commonly eaten just with bread, so I'm going to get a stack of fresh-baked pita from the local Middle-Eastern restaurant, make the three lasaries that I have in mind, and it'll just be a very easy, low-tech presentation. But good!


> > Hi, Ziad
> >
> > I'm trying to home in on some of the correct concepts here. At the
> > moment, my plan is to make a lemon lasary and a "regular" lasary
> > (tomatoes and scallions) at home, and get the savories (fritters, and
> > perhaps a very simple meat dish) from a local West African restaurant.

sounds reasonable. If the meat is beef, it would not be very authentic since all beef in
Madagascar is actually zebu, but no one will be able to tell the difference ...

> > I have a reference -- http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/45c4b/e9c/2/,
> > the second post -- saying that ravitoto on rice is rather dry by itself,
> > and often served with a "tomato-onion relish" which I take to be the
> > lasary.

yes, "tomato-onion relish" is a "lasary". However, ravitoto is very much an acquired taste
that may not be necessarily ideal at all for a first intro to malagasy cuisine. Anyway,
finding cassava leaves would be a challenge, let alone figuring out how to mash them to the
right level of pulverisation. I would definitely remove the ravitoto from contention. On the
other hand, romazava, also an acquired taste if made with the right greens (especially if one
includes their astringent flowers), could be very interesting and acceptable to first-time
consumers if made with milder greens. The same lady who did the video for the lemon lasary
had a youtube video showing how to make romazava with beef -- and you can make romazava with just about any "meat" (one of my favorites is made with river eel, in the fianarantsoa area). Still, for a first time, I would stick to seafood fritters and/or grilled meat with lasary on top, the lasary on top totally makes it malagasy.

As I looked for the lady's video (in vain, but i'm sure it's there), i remembered another
very classic malagasy dish that is easy to make and very appealing to untrained palates,
namely akoho sy voanio -- that would be a total hit. Some people add to it curry-like spices
(ground coriander and/or turmeric and/or cumin), but the essential, unsubstitutable "spice"
is ginger (and coconut, of course).

> > Is that normal for both lasaries?

yes. However one does not mix lasary with stew dishes like coconut chicken or romazava
(though the latter is indeed eaten with a tomato-coulis-like concoction, sort of like finely
chopped and slightly soupy tomato-onion lasary).

> > Is lasary something that can be served with rice by itself?

Sure. It can also be the only stuffing inside malagasy bread, or basically a short regular
(non-sourdough) baguette (sort of like a refreshing "salad sandwich" -- i know it sounds a
little odd, but it's pretty good if eaten right after it's prepared, the "wet" stuffing with
the crusty bread, and certainly better than eating bread by itself, or rice by itself for
that matter, except bread works better than rice when on the go, for obvious reasons).

> > Can the tomato-scallion lasary also be served over fritters?

sure. It can also be served over grilled meat (zebu or pork), etc.

One more thing: many malagasy like to have a little sakay [this is a red pepper sauce, with ginger and garlic] with their food. The sakay is proposed separately, to be added to taste. It can be (and often is) added to any savory cooked dish.

Z.
www.madagascar-consulate.org

Hey, everyone

The first concert was Friday night, and went very well, though turnout was not what I might have hoped. The lasaries came out nicely -- the tomato-scallion one has a nice clean taste of the fresh ingredients. The lemon one I was a bit scared of (I'm not a big spice guy) after mixing all the ingredients (lemon, raw onions, garlic, ginger, curry powder) and having the smell pervade my house for several days, but it has mellowed nicely over the course of the week and transformed itself into... again, it's a very fresh and alive-tasting mixture of lemon "with other stuff".

Like I said, there weren't too many people, but having said that we had a much higher consumption per capita than I'd expected, considering these were strange foods and mostly a non-LTH crowd. We had middle eastern stuff to go with them, so people were putting them on felafel instead of a more traditional type of Malagasy fritter, and also on baba gannoush and just plain pita.

Come to the second show tonight and help us finish it off! (www.tinymahler.com)