theriel

A new restaurant which really is very African in many respects. Because of the newness of the restaurant and inexperience of the staff, my review may not hold up in the long term. Their menu changes fairly regularly, it's cash-only, and it's fairly chaotic. I ordered a lamb dish from the menu, and 10 minutes later was brought a different chicken dish. When I said I ordered lamb, the manager came over, apologized, and said one of the workers forgot to change the menu and they were out of lamb that day. I got beef in a peanut sauce instead, and it was excellent.

The atmosphere in terms of tables, design, etc is relatively normal, and nothing too special, What makes my rating so high despite my description so far is that the restaurant really is African, and I've lived personally in a number of countries in Africa. They take authentic dishes from various parts of Africa (today had Senegalese, Ugandan, and Gambian), and it has a really relaxed authentic feel. and even more surprisingly, the food is not adjusted to Finnish taste. The hot sauce (on the side) was one of the best I've had in Finland, and it REALLY was hot (Finns beware!), and the food was excellent, if not really what I ordered.

If you go in with an open and relaxed mind, you'll get a great experience for a reasonable price. I'd also recommend getting there ASAP. From my own experiences, really authentic restaurants from other cultures often get lots of complaints about spices, and end up removing most of the flavors, become adjusted to Finnish tastes (have salt and pepper and not much else) and lose all their authenticity, and then often go out of business. But now's your chance to get somewhere before that happens!