Iyanze

I'm a long time fan of Bolat. It was the first place where I ate West African food. When it closed over a year ago I was devastated. Convinced it would never reopen, and that gorgeous Africana mural next to the train tracks would be replaced by the awning for an, *ack* Irish Bar or some such nonsense, I was ready to completely renounce East Lakeview. I later found that Bolat's owners had set up shop a mile or so north on Broadway just north of Wilson. I was relieved, but it took me a while to finally make it to Iyanze.

Now I know It's easy to be turned off by the murky stews studded with fatty meats and dessicated smoked fish and pounded starches you eat with your hands, but for people with a taste for spicy, earthy, oily, West African a damn fine cuisine.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous continent. Hell, nearly 1 in 4 Africans are Nigerian. If you don't like Nigerian food, you probably don't like most African food.

To the point. Finally made it to Iyanze and was overall very happy. The interior is great, a bit utilitarian and not super-cozy like Bolat, but very clean, modern and welcoming. Lot's of flat screens (hey, this is Chicago after all, if I can't watch TV while slurping down egusi with goat skin, then the terrorists have already won), a nice area for washing hands, and self-serve water station a la Baba Palace.

My friend and I had goat two ways, some mashed yams with beans and plantains and egusi and spinach soup. In typical Nigerian fashion, the meats were tough - perhaps a little to much so for my liking. Those meat sauces are super-braised. Why the hell isn't the meat falling off the bone? I think its just how they like it.

One goat dish was ok. The other was an absolute knock out. Small bits of fat, chewy meat and maybe some skin studded with ground hot pepper and small dried fish. The sauce was sweet and tomato based, and oozed palm oil. Scooped up in a small thimble of pounded yam fufu, it was ecstasy. Like eyes rolling the back of my head ecstasy.
This brings us to the fufu, which was excellent. Light, barely sweet, and not sticky in the least. I could have eaten two softballs of this stuff with a bottle of hot sauce.

Everything else was fine. I had a cold Guinness stout with the meal that complemented the earthy flavors very well. I left very happy.

Oh, I inquired about Bolat and their grand re-opening was today. I noticed a few flyers on the table next to us advertising it as well. Awesome.

Iyanze Restaurant
4623 N. Broadway
Chicago, IL 60640
773-944-1417

I love Iyanze. Only been to the restaurant once, but I've eaten from the truck a gazillion times. One question: do they advertise the starchy yam as fufu or amala? Amala is what I have always associated with Nigerian food, and it's what the guy in the truck calls what he sells. Maybe they have both?

The menu has fufu as the main heading with amala, pounded yam, kenke and others listed beneath. I gotta get to their truck soon.

Another amazing meal at Iyanze, which is fast becoming my favorite African restaurant of any kind in Chicago (yes I know there are a plethora of different cooking styles from the mother continent).

Pounded yam was delicate and creamy. Stewed chicken fiery and tender. Spinach stew with smoked fish earthy and divine scooped up with a thumbful of pounded yam.

Check out Iyanze. It's awesome.

BTW, why don't we have any African GNRs? Chicago is full of awesome West African eateries?

Habibi wrote:BTW, why don't we have any African GNRs? Chicago is full of awesome West African eateries?

We've rarely had one nominated - sounds like you will be part of fixing that at the next nomination cycle; make a note!

Santander wrote:We've rarely had one nominated - sounds like you will be part of fixing that at the next nomination cycle; make a note!

Rarely implies at least one, refresh my memory please.

Can't wait to try Iyanze!

G Wiv wrote:

Santander wrote:We've rarely had one nominated - sounds like you will be part of fixing that at the next nomination cycle; make a note!

Rarely implies at least one, refresh my memory please.

Ethiopian Diamond

Habibi and I have an LTH dinner at Iyanze in the works in hopes that we can have our first African GNR or at least more discussion on this impressive restaurant. Date & details TBA soon.

Kennyz wrote:Ethiopian Diamond

Yes, you are absolutely correct in fact, while not the nominator, I was a fan and proponent of ED for a GNR.

Frankly, I read it as why are there no West African GNRs, when Habibi actually asked about African and then went on to praise Chicago's "awesome West African eateries."

Are there any past nominations of West African restaurants?

Sorry for not being clear - my question was why don't we have any African GNRs, and to remedy this, I think we could start with West African restaurants, which have a considerable presence in Chicago and put out some damn good food.

Habibi wrote:Sorry for not being clear

You were clear, my reading comprehension is lacking.

G Wiv wrote:Are there any past nominations of West African restaurants?

I can't find one at the moment. This prompted a quick check of the status of African Hut, a pretty cool little place in Milwaukee, which I am disappointed to find closed for reorganization (but some hope of relocation):

http://www.africanpresentations.com/index.html

When nominations push up to Jake's, Zaffiro's, Wells Brothers, etc., this type of place could be worth a look as well. There are a lot of gems just north of the border.

But back to Chicago: I could find an easy list here of West African restaurants. I realize some spots have pan-African selections but would still probably consider themselves as such. Which bricks-and-mortar West African places are recommendable these days? I know Yassa (nary a post in three years) and Vee Vee's (trucks are more reviewed than restaurant). I see a bunch here that I don't know (some are miscategorized).

I'm looking forward to Iyanze; if there are other places people are hearing about or visiting lately, I will be much obliged to learn of them. Thanks for the Iyanze posts, Habibi.

I'm not sure how many people eat there, but it's always full with Ghanaian cabbies - Palace Gate is one of my favorites. Not everything is on point and the full menu usually isn't available, but goddamn if the fried snapper with pickled onions and shitto (a ground dried fish and hot pepper condiment that is spicy as all hell) wasn't one of the best thing's I've eaten in a long long time in Chicago.

It's not very popular with LTH, and probably won't win a GNR (see here. But the fish I had was perfect. Also, I happen to love the super viscous okra stew, especially the little chunks of chopped crab that popped up here and there.

Habibi wrote:Palace Gate is one of my favorites....It's not very popular with LTH

Au contraire, there was a very good LTH event at Palace Gate, arranged by GAF, in 2007.

I read the reactions to that dinner as mixed
at best and dismissive at worst. Just didn't seem that peoe were really into what they ate.

Habibi wrote:If you don't like Nigerian food, you probably don't like most African food.

I don't want to derail this thread but I can't let this sentence pass. In the first place, I assume you really mean to say "sub-Saharan" African food or, more likely, West African food. You know far too much about Egyptian (and probably North African) cuisine to mean "African." A quibble? Maybe. But last I checked, the Maghreb ( بلدان المغرب for all you language students out there) and, indeed, from Morocco east to Egypt, was still part of Africa.

I spent a year in grad school living with a Nigerian student and a while back (in a visit I seriously regret not writing up), I visited Bolat with a Nigerian student of mine. Although there are some dishes I enjoy, on balance I'm not a particular fan of Nigerian food. Yet, I am kinda partial to a lot of dishes from other parts of the continent--say North Africa generally as well as Somalia and Ethiopia, to pick just a few. (I posted on Banadir here and on Demera here.) Once upon a time, germuska put together a dinner at African Harambee where we were able to sample dishes from around the continent, including some eye-openers (for me at least) from South Africa. (Surprisingly, I cannot find the thread that discussed that evening.) I also have to believe that the colonial days and, indeed, commerce itself influenced (for better or worse) indigenous cuisines from South Africa to Angola, Zanzibar (in pre-Tanzania days), Namibia, and elsewhere. Without belaboring the point more than I have already, I just have trouble believing that someone who doesn't like Nigerian food is not going to like most African food.

I hope you are able to put something together for Iyanze. I pass it on the way home every night and have been very curious indeed. If the group dinner doesn't come to pass, maybe we can still put together a small group. I'd enjoy that.

By the way, Bolat changed their menu for the new season. I believe Bolat is focusing on the southern provinces right now. I will confirm shortly.

Great idea on Iyanze! I am game.

happy_stomach wrote:Habibi and I have an LTH dinner at Iyanze in the works in hopes that we can have our first African GNR or at least more discussion on this impressive restaurant. Date & details TBA soon.

I dropped the ball and wasn't able to post about the LTH Iyanze dinner Habibi and I were sketching out until today. But there's lunch instead. Hopefully LTHers can gather with Gypsy Boy at Iyanze tomorrow and give this place its due:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=27761

lunch is wise given all the problems occuring at the Wilson Ave redline stop lately

I had lunch at Iyanze for the first time last week. Spicy chunks of goat over spinach and fish stew, with a side of fufu - quite good. As mentioned by Habibi upthread, the goat was definitely a little chewy, but in a pleasing way.

Goat over spinach stew


-Dan

dansch - looks good, and exactly like what I eat about once a week from the Iyanze truck that hangs out daily between the Sheraton and the AMC movie theater downtown. Chewy? Yes. Satisfying? Definitely.

We made our way over to Iyanze for lunch. We'd never had West African food before and it was a very interesting experience.

It's a large space with tv's on the wall and a pool table up front. We were the only non-Africans in the place and they seemed to be doing pretty good catering business since a couple people walked out with whole trays of food.

All the food is served cafeteria style and we were a little overwhelmed at first since nothing looked familiar. The menu gives tips on how to order, but we couldn't quite make it out. The guy at the register with an "I heart iyanze" shirt didn't seem amused with our curiosity, but a younger girl emerged while we were ordering and helped us out a lot. So basically you order a "soup" which is a chunky stew and hunks of meat go on top, and you order a carb on the side.

Once we figured out what was going on, we ordered the mixed egusi and efo (have to order the combo when you're given the option right?), the ewedu (we think), and the nice girl comped us an order of ogbono. For meat we got the goat and goat w/skin on the combo (once again the nice girl let us try both) and the cowleg and shaki (tripe) on the ewedu. We also ordered the iyan (white) and amala (dark) fufu.


egusi and efo with goat with skin and without

The egusi is the chunky stew made with melon seeds. It had a nice kick to it and an earthy flavor. The efo is the stewed green vegetables. It had a little sour flavor, reminiscent of collard greens. The goat without skin was dry and a little tough, though not bad. The goat with skin was stewed and tender and the skin was pretty fatty and chewy. Pretty different. I think I preferred the skinless just because there was more skin on the plate than I think I'd prefer.


ewedu with shaki and cowleg

The ewedu was served in two ladles. First an oily, slimy soup base, then a green vegetable puree on top. The soup was surprising in how slimey it was, but it had good heat and lots of flavor, perfect for dipping fufu. I didn't understand exactly what cowleg was. It was a bone covered in what seemed like cartilage. It tasted pretty good, though mild, but it was tough to eat. The shaki was a nice big hunk of tripe, though it was a little chewier than most tripes I've had.


iyan (white) and amala (dark) fufu and ogbono

The iyan fufu had a nice fluffy texture and light starchy flavor. The amala had a fuller flavor and slightly mealier texture. Both were good, but iyan was our preference. The ogbono was the highlight of the meal. It comes with meat in it already. I think it was goat and intestines. It had a rich, stewed vegetable flavor and the most heat of any dish. We were instructed to eat it with rice, which was good cuz it needed something to mellow out its deep flavor.

Overall this struck us as very authentic. Nothing safe to order on the menu, definitely not catering to "western" tastes or sensibilities. There are more soups on the menu we'd like to try, next time I think we'll get some fish and I'd definitely like to try the oxtail. I think the fish would've gone well with the sour flavor of the efo. Also they have more types of fufu (eba, kenke, banku) that would be fun to sample.

I'd say this is a great option if you're in the mood for west african cuisine. The food is very flavorful and there is lots of variety on the menu. It's an unassuming atmosphere and the prices are very reasonable (we ate for under 20 bucks). I'd like to try a nice sit down style west african restaurant just to get a better gauge on the quality, but it was hard to complain about the quick, cheap, exotic and flavorful meal we enjoyed.

A few thoughts on the LTH dinner at Iyanze:

The good:
The stewed meats vere generally a bit bony and fatty (hence, probably authentic) and in very flavorful sauces. A variety of fufus were on the menu (but not all available).

The meh:
I’ve always thought of fufu as being sticky. This wasn’t. I know the women at Palace Gate, the Ghanian place just a few blocks away, take pride in spending their afternoons chatting and pounding starches into fufu, producing a sticky product. Is it possible that Iyanze uses an instant fufu powder?

The bad:
It’s a large room, with lots of hard surfaces. So even on an evening like last night, when the place wasn’t especially full, it was tough to hear anyone who wasn’t right next to you. And the big screen TVs, blaring Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, and Deal or No Deal, didn’t add to the experience.

It has a full service bar, unlike most other West African places I’m aware of, which are BYOB. I went up there to get a bottle of wine, waited a number of minutes, and no one showed up. Finally I went up to one of the guys working the food line. “The guy that runs the bar, we don’t know where he is. I’ll try to go in back and find out how much the wine is, and bring a bottle to the table.” He never did; we never got any wine. Is it possible that the liquor operation is a separate concession from the food, operated by a different company, which is why one of the food guys couldn’t help me? Just speculating.

The stewed meats and soups work well on the steam table, as do some of the vegetables. But the coconut rice we tried had crunchy bits, probably dried out grains of rice from being held out too long.

Maybe some of the problems were a result of being there on a Tuesday, a less-busy night. But I doubt I’ll be back any time soon. The food and full waitservice at Palace Gate (or Yassa, on the South Side) I consider much better, and although they can be slow, it’s only because much more of the food is made to order, rather that sitting out of a steam table.

Palace Gate
4548 N. Magnolia Ave.
Chicago, IL 60640
773-769-1793

Yassa African Restaurant
716 E. 79th St.
Chicago, IL
773-488-5599

nr706 wrote:“The guy that runs the bar, we don’t know where he is. I’ll try to go in back and find out how much the wine is, and bring a bottle to the table.” He never did; we never got any wine.

The other highlights were the one (1) 'snail' that showed up at the table in its own tiny $7.99 bowl of sauce, the server's revolving certainty on which steam tray was goat and which was beef, and the piece of turkey that had had a remarkably large and mammalian-looking tibia sticking out of it. Between the four available descriptive sources (paper menu, chalkboard menu, steam tray labels, server narrative), no two agreed for most of the items we ordered, so it would be hard to precisely match the menu names and dishes, which was one of my hopes for the meal.

I liked the space (even with the blaring TVs), and would return for the meat pies with Maggi sauce, coconut rice, and stewed beef with its rich tallow gravy; on these grounds I understand those that champion this place for individual lunches. However, I would not recommend communal dining excursions there with the absence of service, and I don't plan to go back off-hours, since everything we had seemed far over or undercooked and was served barely lukewarm (and the fufu was not up to snuff as mentioned).

I was glad to have the opportunity to try this place in great company; in the interest of full disclosure I did have to invoke the Kuhdo Rule with some La Pasadita on the way south.

I generally concur with the above with a few points of disagreement.

Stipulated:

I. Service is confused, confusing, not conducive to groups that plan on sharing. I should have realized this ahead of time.
II. Where the hell was our wine?
III. That tiny snail was 8 bucks? I had no idea. WTF.
IV. Oxtails not cooked very well.
V. Beef was very good.
VI. The company was great, it was a pleasure meeting all of you.

Not-stipulated:

I. Fufu is supposed to be sticky? Something you eat with your hands, used to scoop up sauces is supposed to be sticky? Really? I don't recall the fufu at Palace Gate being sticky. I'd probably send sticky fufu back to the kitchen.
II. Regarding the steam tables and timing. What place that serves stewed foods ever prepares them "fresh" for you? No Pakistani place, no Indian place, no XXXXXX place. They are cooked, held (maybe in a pot somewhere back in the kitchen) and then reheated if they aren't on some kind of steady heat source. The steamtables don't bother me.
III. If beef was very good, goat was extremely awesome. Am I the only person that enjoyed the heady, smokey, mildly tart sauce the goat was draped in? So good with some pounded yam.

I feel kinda bad that Iyanze was so hit and miss. I still think its a great restaurant, maybe not a GNR, but a great West Africa/Nigerian place that is conveniently located and reasonably priced. If you order the right stuff - goat, beef - and focus on the sauce, and especially combining the sauce with some pounded starch, its some f'ing good eats.

Again, nice meeting you guys. Thanks for making this happen happy_stomach.

H

Habibi wrote:I. Fufu is supposed to be sticky? Something you eat with your hands, used to scoop up sauces is supposed to be sticky? Really? I don't recall the fufu at Palace Gate being sticky. I'd probably send sticky fufu back to the kitchen.

Might just be a matter of differing definitions of the word. I believe that the rice with this namesake is used in Thai cuisine precisely for the purposes you describe.

Fufu from Palace Gate LTH dinner, arranged by GAF:


I still appreciate habibi's role in setting this up.

Hard to argue with that I suppose. Look, I'm not an expert fufu eater, but I do know that I prefer fufu not to stick to my fingers. It's just to messy otherwise if you are eating with your hands. And really, is there any way to eat fufu and stew if not with your hands?

Habibi wrote:I feel kinda bad that Iyanze was so hit and miss. I still think its a great restaurant, maybe not a GNR, but a great West Africa/Nigerian place that is conveniently located and reasonably priced. If you order the right stuff - goat, beef - and focus on the sauce, and especially combining the sauce with some pounded starch, its some f'ing good eats.

In no way should you feel bad - they weren't up to the task last night, but I could easily tell how their best offerings could hit the spot on the right day or time. I have my own favorite steamtray place (Rajun Cajun) that I think always nails the Indian side of the menu but is wildly (really wildly) variable on the Soul Food.*

I've been doing more reading on West African options today; my primary prior experiences are the (related) Bolat truck, offerings at outdoor festivals in a few different cities, and African Hut in Milwaukee. While it didn't totally fill me, and while I wish they'd have their act together to be able to serve both the target population and interested newcomers with equal friendliness like so many of our other favorites, Iyanze has me thinking, and I'm thankful for the experience.

*speaking of which, at Mayor Daley's interfaith prayer breakfast this morning at the JLM Abundant Life Center on the West Side, the hot food offerings were bacon, carved ham, shrimp in gravy, and fried chicken and eggs (same pan) for an 80% Muslim or Jewish crowd. Served with Kedem grape juice. I kid you not. Iyanze quite seriously would have been a better catering choice.

Habibi wrote:Hard to argue with that I suppose. Look, I'm not an expert fufu eater, but I do know that I prefer fufu not to stick to my fingers. It's just to messy otherwise if you are eating with your hands. And really, is there any way to eat fufu and stew if not with your hands?

The real challenge is to eat soup with fufu from a communal bowl.

While the snail at $7 was expensive, from afar it was the largest snail I ever saw on a dining table. All the proteins were tough to eat, except for the Pepper Soup with relatively tender beef and very tender tendon.

I stopped by Mario's for an Italian Ice to augment dinner.

I am still delighted with the experience. This is not the kind of restaurant I gravitate to on my own, thus communal dining to try as much as possible worked well for me.

Cost was $13.45 per person, though it was rounded to $14.00.

Regards,