hi there

A month or so ago I saw an ad in 20 Minutes, looking for cooks and waiters for a new African restaurant in Kreis 4. Does anyone know where this place is, and whether it is open yet?

Thanks in advance...

The restaurant is called Mama Africa and will (apparently) serve typical South African cuisine. Hasn't opened yet (scheduled for middle of Sept.) As far as i know it is located in Kreis 5 (industry quarter) off escher wies platz.

Well I went there (restaurant Mama Africa) this evening with my girlfriend, and after being guided to our table, sat there for around 10 minutes with no waiter tending to us, giving a menu, or taking an order.... needless to say we got up and left... on the way out we even overheard someone say "there goes another one, this place has no service". Instead we went to a Mexican restaurant called Don Weber which is in the same neighborhood. We got there, were guided to a table, were given a menu, and ordered drinks which arrived within 3 minutes... now THAT is how you handle guests. The food was surprisingly nice, though the habanero chili pickles side dish I ordered were a bit wussy for my taste, guess they were adapted for the local market.

Is there an Ethiopian restaurant here? The food is excellent given the
right cook.

I don't know about Ethiopian, but there is an African one in Stampfenbachstrasse not far away from the main station. I went there for lunch, and found the menu - well, not too interesting. Everything was either with peanut sauce or with coconut sauce or with coconut-peanut sauce. However, the place seems to be quite popular among Africans. The service was excellent, extremely friendly and fast.

So, question: Is this typical? And, for someone who knows what the food should be like, is the food at this place good? Just curious.

Enjoy
Idgie

Yep the restaurent is called African Queen on Stampfenbach str 2 stops up from centrale

Its not a very big place , pretty basic in side reminds me a bit of school cantine !.. but the food is pretty good , owner jerry is very nice and actually has an idea of what service is , menu not to varied.. sells african beers or wines.

Good lunch option or evening meal ..

would give it a thumbs up for low/mid priced dinner

Hi,

I believe, I went once in heuried,(tram 14) towards triemli. The restaurant was then almost new and did not even have the name board displayed at the time(~3 months ago).

Food was good, service could be better..

However, if you venture to other parts of Switzerland, here is a link I found on google...I have been to a couple of them in geneva...Awash is good.

http://www.ethiopianrestaurant.com/s...nd/dining.html


Cheers
Tab

I would say that africa is rather big...so, typical food could be anything..but peanutsauce/coconot sauce is not (definately not!) typical for the southern part of Africa.

If you're hungry for Couscous, Sultan isn't too bad and the service is very good.

http://www.restaurant-sultan.ch/pages/willkommen.html

Guess you got unlucky with the service on that evening. I went there last weekend as my girlfriend's brother was keen on the idea. The service was fine - drinks were offered from the start and arrived promptly. Wine glasses were never empty and food was served neither too quickly nor too slow. The food was actually quite good but I would not really call it typical south african food. The koeksister at the end was excellent though.

That is a pity about the service at the new Mama Africa, because the one i know in Cape Town Long Street is absolutely great.

I went to the Zürich Mama Africa a couple of months ago. The food was ok but the service was not. There was one person taking the order, and two other people rushing around serving and clearing the tables, and wine waiters doing their thing. The servers weren't really paying attention to the tables - for example we had missing cutlery but the servers didn't pick that up.

The worst thing about that evening was the guy with the TV camera, who kept wandering around the restaurant filming people dining. No asking permission first - just filming. We're not talking little restaurant pan shots either (no puns intended), but rather 10 minute close-ups of people and tables and the dishes that they had chosen etc. T*sser.

I have had lunch in Mama Africa a few times, it is much better during the day time or maybe it has improved.

We went to Mama Africa with the department once for our Xmas dinner.

The ambiance of the place is nice and the food was okay, even if not very varied. However, the organisation was awful. First of all they had "forgotten" that we had reserved a table, and their attitutude towards this was more arrogant than apologetic. We sat down at the bar while they tried to sort this out, and had to wait ages to be served. Then when we finally did get a table, the waiter wasn't much use. Whenever we asked him to explain what this is or that is, he just replied that it was nice, which isn't exactly helpful. He then managed to get most of our orders wrong, and again when we pointed this out he was arrogant about it and went into denial.

I don't think I'll be back in a hurry.

Hi Idgie

Having worked across sub-Saharan Africa for many years, a typical African meal I would enjoy with my workers would be:

Meat (Huge range to chose from, tortoise anyone?) + Rice (manioc if you're lucky) + red, mouth destroying pilipili sauce.

Then of course you have the well known and easily recogniseable 'Poulet biciclette', fork bending chicken with the texture of a bicycle!

Cheers

Jim

Yes isn't it wonderful? Worked in a refugee centre for some years and got invited to try some Ethiopian dish made out of black beans and various unknown spices. Was reluctant to try at first because it looked like cow dung but it was one of the tasitiest dishes I've ever tried....

dunno if already mentioned, but blunt/tearoom at gasometerstrasse has marocco cuisine on the menu. very good quality, fair money.

On the Moroccan cuisne, there is a really good restaurant called Jawhara. A little off the Lang Str. and not very popular as its off the beaten path but service and food were great.

Additionally there is often a live band crooning out arabic love songs and you can order a shisha pipe after dinner (although its a bit costly at 20 SFr ).

Try this place - I think it's great : http://african-queen.ch/

Sorry to bring this up, but there is no such thing as African cuisine or an African Restaurant!

Each tribe and region in Africa has its own cuisine, let alone each country.
In Kenya for example, there are many different tribes and each one has its own food. The coastal tribal food is very different from the tribal foods that you get upcountry.

It would be the same as saying that Spain and Poland have the same type of cuisne as they are both 'European' , which is utter nonsense.