Trying out Senegalese Dabakh Restaurant? Get the lamb
I watched Senegal play a World Cup soccer game on TV the other day and later ate in a Senegalese restaurant. File that under “perks of living in 21st-century Columbus.” (Senegal is a West African nation for those rusty in geography.)
The events were unsurprisingly related: Watching Senegal play reminded me that Dabakh Restaurant — the Senegalese eatery I referenced — had recently moved, and its new incarnation was on my list of restaurants to check out.
Dabakh should be on your list of restaurants to check out, too, if you enjoy a dining adventure from a no-frills place that showcases locally uncommon dishes with delicious flavors that can often seem familiar to Midwestern-raised palates.
Dabakh relaunched about three months ago near the repurposed fastfood location it called home for about a decade. My first thought upon entering the new Dabakh, which resides in a Northeast Side strip mall, is that its institutional-style overhead lighting was bright.
My second thought was that I was standing by the only menu. Taped to a wall facing the entrance is a patchwork of (actually realistic) food photographs with titles and simple descriptions. Prices had been provided via felt-tipped pen.
My third thought: Dabakh does a brisk takeout business. Unlike most customers, though, I was dining in. So after ordering at the counter, I took a seat at a utilitarian table and then took in the rest of the room.
Decorations on mango-tinted walls were minimal, but lively: conical Fulani hats, djembe drums and figurative artworks on wood. The room’s focal point is a big TV that, if you’re lucky like I was one night, will be screening spectacular music-and-dance videos featuring hyper-talented Senegalese artist Ouzin Keita.
If you’re lucky to visit on a Friday or Tuesday, you can order the hauntingly delicious mafe ($12), an offered-twicea-week West African classic. Dabakh’s version of the peanut butter-based stew starred a smooth, brick-red, tangy, earthy and thoroughly chuggable broth that’s not far from a curry-style gravy or a Creole-style roux. The stew, which contained bulky lamb bone shards along with some tender meat, came with a side of fiery-fruity chile paste (this accompanies most entrees) and white rice to sop up the addictive broth/ sauce.
I received way more meat — more than even I could eat — with the wonderful dibi lamb ($18). This whopping platter partnered smoky, juicy, herbkissed, skillfully chargrilled thin lamb chops with: onions alluringly cooked down a la French onion soup; an aioli and half a boiled egg that, eaten together, approached deviled-egg flavors; a side choice, such as Dabakh’s excellent
plantains or smile-inducing attieke (fermented, minced cassava that conjured vinegary couscous).
Is poultry more your jam? The dibi chicken ($18) was similar, but featured a truckload of skinless chargrilled leg and thigh pieces instead of lamb chops. Another difference: Its allium component was an irresistibly pungent, pico-degallo-like onion relish.
Cooked-down onions with olives and nuanced, mustardy notes nearly stole the show in the yassa chicken entree ($12, with rice). The leg-thigh quarter I received had darkly blistered skin, but otherwise resembled the chargrilled dibi chicken.
What the menu calls “jollof rice” ($12) is actually thieboudienne, aka Senegal’s national dish. Dabakh’s take was red snapper bits, super-tart tamarind seeds (suck them like lozenges) plus a heaving mound of broken rice deeply enhanced by an umami-forward, zestily spiced sauce redolent of concentrated tomatoes and onions. Devouring this with garnishes of cooked-to-sweet cabbage, carrots and cassava was deliciously illustrative that Africa is the soul of American soul food.
Dabakh’s wall doesn’t mention some other draws, so I will: bissap ($2.50) — a refreshing, garnet-tinted hibiscus beverage with minty undertones; bouye ($2.50) — looks like frothy chocolate milk, tastes like tropical fruit, is made with baobab pulp (Google it); thiakry ($4) — the tangy, yogurt-and sourcream-enriched Senegalese answer to rice pudding, but made with couscous instead of rice.
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