Nigerian Foods and Your Health; Plus Bonus Restaurant Reviews

When we speak of International cuisine most people are just starting to experience the wonders of African cuisine. Too bad the world is just waking up to this now…I will certainly not use the word “discover” to describe any other thing regarding motherland Africa. Too much trauma have already been created around that word darlings and no it’s not over 2000 or so years ago. Everyday, people of colour still face discrimination based on perceived misconceptions or stereotypes embedded into the subconscious mind. I face them myself. And instead of getting upset when you read this as a non-person of colour actually take a moment to reflect and be self aware and ask yourself “In what way are you perpetuating discriminatory stereotype?”. Alas I digress. Back to tongue delicacies.

In any case I have written some previous blog posts about several Nigerian spices/foods but this time I am choosing to review experiences I have of Nigerian restaurants in Diaspora. You guessed right I will be pinning this post to my curated page the lady, her city and style. Most Nigerian foods contain ingredients, spices, herbs and vegetables that are very healthy. For example the famous fried rice use very minimal oil and contains many healthy veggies. Nigerian Ofada rice which I is not very popular but getting there has a very low glycemic index and is great for people with diabetes, prediabetes or those just wanting to keep cholesterol levels low, Nigerian pap is one of the healthiest meal you can try made from fermented guinea corn, millet or corn..oh dear I miss running around my mom as a child, impatient for her to squeeze out the fermented water, get the pap out and make it. It can be eaten with healthy milk, bean cakes, honey, brown sugar and so on.

For a more detailed post on Nigerian cuisine and its health benefits, by all means follow my newsletter (which I am still working my head around its mechanisms with fun geeky buddies. We are all book worms over here and that’s alright). So in Calgary, Winnipeg and Vancouver, I checked out a number of Nigerian restaurants. Today I will share two of these with you.

The first is Delish Dining in South East Calgary. When I first arrived in North America I was quite sad. It wasn’t that I was unhappy, because I was. I was meeting my goals and striking off those items on my life’s bucket list. With every growth however comes sacrifices and I had just lost my father and then made a 360 turn to leave most of my family and close friends. So I was shopping for some familiar comfort food when I stumbled on Delish Dining. I called them to confirm some details and made my first order. After that I never looked back. One cold day, however I convinced a friend from the Caribbeans to take me there after the voicemail kept playing to me that they had an event every Friday. Take note entrepreneurs because I did too. Use every second to advertise your enterprise hehe…Ibo’s have a thing for business no lie.

Anyways we got there, saw a very lovely Nigerian crown mixed with some Canadians, Asians, so many people from diverse places. The vibe was a VIBE. From then on Delish Dining became one of my guilty pleasures where I can splurge a bit, eat a bit more, sing if a little offkey and dance to Nigerian tunes aka Afro-beats. Since then I have taken my Canadian friends to try Nigerian Pepper Soup, Fried Rice, Ofada Rice and so on.

Next on this post’s review is Yenny Delight. See ehn, one thing about me I have some attachment trauma I am still working on. I would sometimes get attached to the most interesting things. Food, a bus route, a perfume, a silly old, hole infested pink cardigan or in this case a restaurant. After I encountered Delish Dining, I didn’t want to try any other Nigerian food location. I pouted when my friends suggested other places and never went anywhere else. However as I am very big on cultural exchange I traveled a lot in Nigeria. So I often craved food that are not from my own tribe/ethnic group. Delish is owned by an Ibo couple. This doesn’t matter to me except that to the extent that in influences their food offerings which are mostly from East Nigeria and The South-South. I wanted the western meals cooked with a serious Yoruba touch. So again I started my hunt.

Forever an anthropologist in my approach I landed at Yenny Delights. While I was still trying to decide what to do I fell ill, was taken to the emergency ward and needed around 3 weeks to recuperate. I could not cook, could barely walk, was totally out of it and the few new friends I had were the ones bringing me food. Shout to out to them. Regardless, I didn’t want to bother anyone so I ordered food from Yenny Delights. Best Decision I ever made. The bowl arrived piping hot, over a 100 dollars and stayed with me for over a month. Yummy. I have had some customer service concerns as well and the founder was always so courteous going above and beyond to help. Foods I have tried here include their Beans pudding called moi moi, Jollof Rice, and Ofada stew. For now these two are my go to’s in Calgary. I will share specifics on the yumminess on the foods next post. On Friday my friend and I had a blast at Delish with Jollof Rice, Ofada Rice and the infamous Nigerian Barbecue Fish. This friend is white and is probably still reeling over the shock of Ofada’s umami flavour while savouring the taste of Nigerians Jollof Rice. (I gave warnings heheh).

That will be this post fam. Remember to subscribe to news letter and check out my poetry page, I actually have a cute poem on….wait for it…jollof rice!

Much Love….