Dispatches From the Trial of Daniel Penny. The shades were often pulled down tight, and the gates barely raised, discouraging casual visitors from barging in—though those who persevered received a warm welcome. The bill of fare was limited to three dishes per day, and there was no printed menu. For outsiders, dining in these semisecret enclaves was exhilarating, filled with fascinating flavors that included bright-orange palm oil, unfamiliar green herbs, and smoky dried stockfish.
I spotted my first Ghanaian restaurant in University Heights in Located in a region north of the Cross Bronx Expressway whose steep hills and step streets might remind you of San Francisco, African American Restaurant was a tiny steam-table joint that offered the inspired combination of Ghanaian mashes and American soul food, mainly to cab drivers.
Leap like an antelope forward to The area has become a hotbed of Ghanaian eats, serving a burgeoning commercial community that manages import-export houses, textile shops, hair salons, and groceries. Over a two-week period recently, I toiled up and down the thoroughfares of University Heights and adjacent neighborhoods looking for Ghanaian restaurants, and happened upon three exceptional ones. The dining room is all windows, and a menu above a rear counter shows numbered color pictures of the soup, mash, and meat combos that make up most meals.
Into the peanut potage the cook has knocked golf balls of emo tuo, made of rice so extensively pounded that the grain structure vanishes.
A roast fish may be substituted for the bird. The first is seedy, fishy, and jet-black; the second, made with fresh tomatoes, resembles Mexican pico de gallo. Located on a side street a half-block from Jerome Avenue, Uptown African Restaurant must have once been a Dominican honky-tonk, the balcony and dance floor now covered with neatly arranged tables. Go for the pepper soup, an off-menu standard that involves gelatinous cow foot and sinewy beef chunks in a fiery, sweat-inducing broth.
