Exceptional eats

Turay Lamin, a 44-year-old businessman from Sierra Leone, recently set up Turay's Africa House, a restaurant and entertainment center.

The menu lists 69 dishes, divided into snacks, appetizers, soups, salads, main sauces, stews, side dishes, and whole dishes. Africans will be familiar with these offerings while the rest of the world may find dining here a novel experience.

For starters try tapalapa, mixed vegetable salad with carrot, lettuce and cucumber. African-style sauces include egusi sauce with melon seed, west African tomato stew and efo/sukimawiki, spinach sauce. You can choose to have spicy or mildly spicy sauces.

A typical main dish is wakie-talkie, or chicken drum sticks soup. For a staple food order boiled cassava, which is smooth and goes well with the sauces. Otherwise try some pounded yam, or Jolof rice, Senegal style. Canned Vita-Malt is tasty, while there is a large selection of alcoholic drinks at the bar.

There are plenty of other interesting items on the menu, such as fried plantain slices with homemade sauce, Moi-moi, and Suya beef skewers. The major seasoning ingredients come from Africa, while fresh vegetables and meats are sourced locally.

The chef is Chinese, who Turay and his wife have trained for years. Waitresses are English-speaking Chinese people, while Lamin greets his guests warmly at the restaurant.

Previously Lamin, who came to Beijing in 1994, set up the first African restaurant, Tim Boucktou, in 1998. Later he opened another restaurant, Turay's Place. He said his new establishment is the realization of his dreams.

There is African TV and African performances on the ground floor at the three-story venue. There are sofa seats on the second floor and foot massages on the third floor. The place is nicely decorated with a lot of African elements.

(11 am-midnight. 17 Gongti Donglu, northwest corner of Landao crossroad, Chaoyang district. 6553-4883)