French African Restaurant le Conakry

Sorry if it's been mentioned, but Howard Street is now home to another new restaurant:

French African Restaurant le Conakry
2049 W Howard St
Chicago, IL 60645-2113
(773) 262-6955

Directly across the street, the new cafe where Me Voici used to be has opened; it's not clear if the cafe actually houses a kitchen (it didn't before) or not.

Made it to Le Conakry last night ... and coincidentally met the French Couple, who also chose it for a chilly Wednesday evening. Billed as French-African, the owners are from Guinea; the food reminded me of the Senegalese restaurant Yassa. (Both Guinea and Senegal were parts of the former French West Africa.) But for me, Howard Street is a lot closer than 79th for that type of dining.

Open since Dec 7, it seems a bit like a work in progress. We brought a bottle of wine, and asked for a corkscrew ... after several minutes, it became clear they didn't have one, but the owner offered to run out and purchase one for us. Instead, I ran out to the car and got one. Always prepared, the French Couple had brought screw-top wines.

After consulting with the very friendly and helpful owner, we ordered the Chicken Yassa, and a braised beef dish (don't remember the name) - rather soupy, with a peanut butter base. Everything came with large plates of white rice, which worked well to sop up the peanut sauce, and the caramelized onions that came with the chicken. They also offered a bit of a hot sauce on the side - scorching hot on its own, but perfect mixed with the peanut sauce over the rice.

We also got a large, iceberg lettuce based salad with tomato and cucumber, and a house-made dressing - although they also provided a bottle of commercial ranch salad dressing "in case you don't like our dressing." Needless to say, we didn't touch the bottle.

Probably not a destination, and definitely a bit rough around the edges, but Le Conakry was a nice stop on a wintry night. And with quite a lot of food for two, under $20 before tip, you can't argue with the value.

Le Conakry
2049 W. Howard St.
Chicago

Yassa African Caribbean Restaurant
716 E. 79th
Chicago

You can tell it's LTH when someone posts about a new Guinean restaurant and two separate groups of LTHers independently show up for dinner that Wednesday evening.
The stewed beef nr706 mentioned is maffe tegga (peanut sauce) with beef. We also had it, and I found the sauce particularly rich -- the dish can be pretty gruesome if the sauce is too watery. Watch out for the red pepper, though. I ate mine and promptly began to hiccup. It was pretty powerful, though sweet tasting.
We also had the chicken yassa, which was particularly good, and the maffe hacco, a thick concoction made with cassava leaves. It was very tasty, but had a particular oomph to it that we couldn't quite identify, and which the owner told us (after we repeatedly failed to guess right) was powdered dried shrimp. Instead of salad, they offered us complimentary fried plantains (alloko)
While I have to agree that the restaurant is still a work in progress, I very much like the way it is going. As often happens with small ethnic restaurants which just opened, their menu is a lot more ambitious than what they have at hand on any given occasion. (We were told that there are a larger range of dishes available on Friday and Saturday evenings.) Still, I was impressed with the quality of what they offered. Some of the dishes are Senegalese -- yassa, thiebou djen; or from from Ivory Coast -- attieke (which they didn't have that evening anyway). Others, like the maffe tegga or the maffe hacco, have a broader distribution throughout West Africa, but are certainly typical of Guinea as well. This, rather than the French connection, explains the similarities to Yassa.
I popped in yesterday at noon time to check the place over before coming for dinner, and it was empty! In the evening, though, it was doing a reasonably brisk business, though mostly catering to African clients (surprise!). But I very much hopes it survives. I am hopelessly biased, but am convinced that food is better in former French than former British colonies.

We returned to Le Conakry for lunch today with two friends. They have expanded the available offerings, and we had a chance to sample some dishes we did not have the last time, as well as to have some more of the delicious yassa chicken ans well as the maffe hacco, the leaf stew. Last time, we had the version made with cassava leaves, but this time we tried the dish made from potato leaves, somewhat more tender than the cassava. We preferred the cassava as a bit tastier and heartier, but both versions are nice and our friends were impressed. We also had the maffe soupou (i.e. soup), beef in a hearty red sauce, similar but not as sweet as the peanut sauce. The star of the meal was attieke with fish -- a whole broiled tilapia, crunchy skin on the outside and tender fish on the inside. Attieke is fermented manioc; it looks and taste like a cross between couscous and sauerkraut. It took 45 minutes to prepare, the owner warned us, but in the meantime we had plenty of other food to work on and it was well worth the wait. The owner comped us a new dish on the menu, a soup of chicken meatballs that were also very tasty. For drinks, we had bissap -- a sweet drink made from hibiscus flowers, much like jamaica in Mexican restaurants, and gave us some nyamakuji -- literally "ginger water", the African answer to ginger beer (no bubbles!) to taste. Heavenly, at least for ginger lovers. The restaurant is picking up business, according to the owner, and the food is still excellent.

We were able to check out Le Conakry (alongside germuska and companion) this past week and had a nice meal and a really nice time.

The place itself and the staff are friendly, warm, and accommodating and the meal was pretty darn good as well.

We were able to try the chicken yassa and the tilapia atieke as mentioned above as well as the cassava leaf stew and a lamb kabob/ grilled meat on a stick preparation. Along side we asked for a small dish of piment (the hot sauce, made from habanero, garlic, chiles and a little lime) and I had some of the ginger juice

From what i understand from a friend who spent some time in the region the inclusion of senegalese (yassa) and ivorian (atieke) dishes is pretty customary for guinean spots as both countries neighbor guinea and since the war there are many persons from those two countries in guinea.

Though I will go back just to hang out and talk guinean music with the owner (if you want to get him going mention balla et ses balladins) I enjoyed all the dishes we sampled, the dish that I'll make sure to eat on return trips will be the cassava leaf preparation - cooked with goat and thickened with pounded fish and dry shrimp, it had a nice texture and thickness and a heartiness I really enjoyed, placing it with chopal's sarson ka saag among my favorite greens preparations.

now I'll have to see if I can convince them to source and prepare the giant snails my friend ate in benin - 8 inches long and one snail can fill an entire skewer