D'licious

Tastee D's imports authentic West African fare to the site of a Fourth Street legend.

by David Snyder

[ review ]

Mark Stehle EFO-FRIENDLY: Tastee D's efo elegusi platter with goat, jollof rice and plantains.

Imagine for a moment that you're an assistant vice president in the New York City office of one of the world's top financial services companies. You make six figures. You live on the 21st floor of a New Jersey high rise with a view of the New York City skyline. Life is good. Then one day your phone rings. It's your manager. He asks you to come down to the HR department. The economic crisis has forced the company to make cuts. You're among the first group of layoffs.

And just like that, it's all gone. What's your Plan B?

Adedotun "Dot" Adepoju doesn't have to imagine this scenario; he lived it in July 2008. For most people in his situation, Plan B consists of simply looking for another corporate job. But after traveling back home to West Africa to regroup, Adepoju turned to bean counting in a purer sense: He opened a restaurant — Tastee D's, the new African spot on Fourth near South Street.

"I thought, 'I'm not going to work for corporate America again,'" Adepoju recalled in a recent interview. "I'm going to work for myself, and this is the time."

But scrapping high finance for the restaurant biz? In this economy? "Some people thought I was crazy," Adepoju laughed. But Adepoju's no newbie. Though born in the U.S., Adepoju grew up in Nigeria, so he knows West African food. Plus, long before he got RIF'd at the firm, he was running the Delaware-based Blessed Hands Catering on the side. Adepoju had always wanted to introduce West African cuisine to a wider audience and do so in a classy setting. When Django's former space became available, he seized the opportunity. Adepoju kept the exposed brick, but to make the 44-seat space his own he painted the north wall burnt orange, added dark brown curtains and African artwork, and spins The Best of Sade.

At first, the entrée portion of Tastee D's menu appears redundant: three seemingly identical platter-like sections distinguished only by the type of carb at play (rice, yams or beans) and a separate section of "choice meats" (currently chicken, angus beef, fish and goat) to pair with each entrée. But the menu's organization is true to its origins — in Africa, these carbs, in fact, are the main courses, with meats and other offerings (spinach, fried plantains) as sides.

The components of these entrées are familiar and accessible. But there's still enough nuance to give you a taste of West Africa. When he can find them, Adepoju uses yams from Ghana because they have a wonderfully delicate sweetness that Colombian yams lack. I especially enjoyed the version he serves crowned with corned beef; the topper's salty and savory flavors blended well with the sweet tubers.

I like that Adepoju sources fresh goat instead of frozen. Though the meat was a little tough, it was refreshing to taste the gaminess that's often subdued at other restaurants. I appreciate the desire to accommodate, but I wish the kitchen would have said they were out of chicken instead of subbing in chicken wings from the apps menu. My favorite meat, though, was tender, cubed angus beef, a natural partner for its tomato- and pepper-based sauce.

Indeed, the core of these carb-centric mains is this red sauce called obe ata (including tasty jollof rice that's cooked in this stew to make a sort of African jambalaya). The kitchen boils tomatoes, onions and peppers together before blending them with other spices, including garlic, thyme, cayenne pepper and Maggi, a vegetable-based bullion substitute popular in Nigeria, to create a sauce with a lot of high notes of bright tomato. On my first visit, I wished that Tastee D's sauce had the complexity and deep, savory heat I've enjoyed when I've had West African food elsewhere. (Adepoju is not dumbing down the heat for Westerners; he says it's traditional where he grew up to keep the spice level low unless otherwise requested.) When I returned, I asked the kitchen to amp it up and was pleased when the flavors came out closer to what I was accustomed to.

The dishes on Tastee D's menu that I gravitated toward were the ones that are less familiar to Western palates. I loved the moin moin, a pudding-like cake made with black-eyed peas. This smooth-textured delight owes its depth of flavor to corned beef and boiled eggs blended in alongside the same tomato-pepper sauce. The yellow mound of ground melon seed that topped the efo elegusi gave the spinach, which was cooked in the kitchen's red sauce, a bright and refreshing lift. Adepoju refused to tell me what goes into the special blend of spices that gives his suya, West African beef kebab, such a rich, peppery heat. He uses the same top-secret blend to craft the seafood pepper soup — one of my favorite dishes — which has such a deep and soulful warmth, I'm almost hoping for a brutal winter to exploit this soup's potential.

The most challenging dishes I sampled here were amala and ogbono. Ground yam skin is mixed with boiled water to make a gray dough that's formed into a ball using plastic wrap. The idea is to pinch off a bit of the sticky, Play-Doh-like amala, roll it into a ball, and dip it into the ogbono (a stew made with blended okra and melon seed). I'll admit, I wasn't much of a fan — amala has a harsh, cascading bitterness that was compounded by the intense vegetal flavors of the ogbono. Adepoju says it's an acquired taste (even he won't eat it!).

But that dish, ironically, is part of why I like Tastee D's. Philly has a vibrant restaurant scene, but it lacks depth in certain areas, including cuisines like West African and Ethiopian. Authentic dishes like the amala and ogbono — dishes it would have been very easy to leave off the menu — help to build that depth. The economic storm has claimed a number of sacred dining spots here. Thanks to enterprising upstarts like Tastee D's, there may be a silver lining after all.

(david.snyder@citypaper.net)

Tastee D's | 526 S. Fourth St., 215-923-1113, tasteeds.com. Hours: Mon-Thu., noon-10:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., noon-11:30 p.m.; closed Sun. Appetizers and soups, $5-$12; entrées, $12-$30, weekday lunch buffet, $8.95. No alcohol.