The Head Chef of Bostai Restaruant (also known as Just Amala) is Mama Bostai. The former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt Hon. Dimeji Bankole was a frequent customer here
Am a sucker for Amala, and I try as much as possible to know where to get the best Amala around my environment. Amala is made from Yam flour basically and turns into a black dough when added to Hot water. It can be eaten with different types of soup but ewedu and gbegiri seems to be the favourite.
And so the search for the best Amala around me took me to JUST AMALA, Oduduwa way, GRA, Ikeja. It is located behind Rumours Night Club, popularly speculated to be owned by one of Nigeria’s foremost and most popular musicians, Tuface Idibia. It was a long walk from our office down to this place.
The setting of the JUST AMALA buka is very spacious, well arranged and definitely not designed for everyone. From my own observation, the Buka was built with the upwardly mobile and sophisticated working class executives in mind because we met quite a number of them there.
I proceeded to the counter and ordered for Amala, just like I said earlier, this place was not meant to serve people with shallow pockets. A small ball of Amala costs N100, and for my tiny size, I needed to buy at least 3 balls.
I moved over to be served soup, there were options of Ewedu, Okra, Gbegiri, Efo riro and Egusi soup. I decided to go for the Egusi soup and I was told I will have to pay N100 separately for the soup, hmmmmm. I thought this was a Buka and not Shoprite. Anyway, I told her serve me the egusi as I was willing to pay and I really did not feel like taking the Ewedu which she made clear was the only free soup available. I added a Turkey, sold for N500.
My food was packed and we left for the #Foodprefect lab to analyse.
Getting to the Lab and opening the food, here’s what it looked like. The aroma of the food was really nice I must confess. It smelt like something a new girlfriend will cook for her new found rich boyfriend. I took my 1st morsel of the Amala, and it tasted unexpectedly very good.
This 1st taste was accompanied by expressions such as “Hmmm, hmmm, very good, this is good”. The food was so tasty and well seasoned and I immediately forgot the long trek to Just Amala and back from my office. It was Amala and soup very well prepared, well garnished and well eaten.
The Turkey was totally out of this world, it was soft, succulent and tasted absolutely great and homely. Reminds me of real owambe party flavours.
The total package costs N1000 with take away pack and the likes.
Big ups to Just Amala, the food is great and I hope it stays that way cos I really can’t wait to go back there.