March 09--Some of the better egg rolls this purebred Asian sampled happened at, of all places, a Senegalese restaurant in Bronzeville called Yassa. What's more beguiling is that when I dipped those thin, lacy packages into the accompanying amber condiment, it tasted of the funky, full frontal umami richness that could only be nuoc mam: It was Vietnamese fish sauce!
Cultural crossbreeding via geopolitics can produce unexpected culinary mutts (see Japanese-Peruvian, Portuguese-Indian). During the 1930s, a number of Senegalese served with the French army in Vietnam (both are former colonies of France). Some soldiers returned with new Vietnamese brides. All these years later that hybrid culture endures, and in its most recognizable form, an African take on the nem ran egg roll.
The Vietnamese name nem stuck around in Senegalese kitchens. Awa Gueye, the genial chef and co-owner of Yassa, told me nem is quintessential party food, as ubiquitous in her homeland as Buffalo wings in America. Yassa's egg rolls are stuffed with ground beef, chicken, shrimp and noodles, and there are proprietary spices within -- definitely non-Southeast Asian -- that elevate the egg rolls beyond the familiar. Then you realize you're tasting this through the filter of the surroundings -- a ceiling-height mural of Africa, snatches of Senegalese-accented merci beaucoups in the air, a soundtrack of propulsive get-up-and-dance music.
When it comes to altering expectations, Yassa is the poster child. This newspaper first wrote about the restaurant eight years ago, when it operated on 79th Street in Greater Grand Crossing. There it lasted a decade, which in restaurant years, is a holy miracle. At the beginning of 2015, Gueye and her husband, Madieye, moved the restaurant to Bronzeville, steps from the Victory Monument sculpture.
"Everything here is fast food, fried chicken, Subway," she said. "We need to create a village in Bronzeville. We want Bronzeville to be the next Hyde Park."
Of all the African cuisines, Senegalese is one of the more easily identifiable to Western palates. Nearly the entire menu consists of meat and seafood that's grilled or stewed, paired with rice or other starches. There's overlap with Jamaican, perhaps Puerto Rico, for sure Vietnam, or some other tropical nation with bountiful coastlines.
The Yassa red snapper is scored and fried whole, and it emerges from the hot oil in crispy curls you can peel back like primordial fish fingers. This, plus the Yassa chicken/lamb/shrimp, feature identical preparations, served with a savory heap of soft onions braised with lemon juice, mustard and Maggi seasoning sauce.
The dish called Dibi lamb, as wide in circumference as Porterhouse pork chops, is one of the finer versions around -- Bronzeville, Lincoln Park, anywhere -- with that magical union of charcoal grill + lamb fat. Shish-kabobed cubes of chicken breast (called brochette here, as is the French way) also benefit from the char grill. The chef appears to have a knack for timing the moment to remove meats from fire. Those dishes call for couscous, or djolof rice, the side dish of perfectly granular jasmine rice tinted with tomato paste.
Peanuts, an important cash crop in Senegal, show up in an indigenous stew called maffe: Collapsible-ly tender lamb is braised in a peanut butter-tomato sauce, alongside similar tine-soft potatoes and yam. Saka saka might be the most adventurous of the menu offerings. Bone-in lamb, shrimp and shards of crab meat come in a sauce of ground cassava leaves -- it tastes of sweet wheatgrass, and it feels like a dish a grandmother says will get rid of the bad spirits.
Speaking of medicinal, a housemade drink of ground ginger, pineapple and lime juice will warm your stomach by 20 degrees. There's also juice extracted from baobab pods, mixed with milk and vanilla extract, and it arrives tasting of a passionfruit and pineapple smoothie.
With service, diners used to a certain River North rhythm should dial down expectations. While the Gueyes make their rounds in the dining room playing amiable "My home is your home" hosts, service can be maddeningly languid. Each time a server popped through the kitchen door with a plate of food, our dining neighbors would whip their heads to see if they'd be the lucky recipients. After a while, one of those customers said, "Five more minutes, and we're out of here." (Awa Gueye said she has hired additional cooks since their move to Bronzeville.)
Nevertheless, Yassa feels like (and I hate the old trope) comfort food, even if you might not be that familiar with it. I use that term because whether it's warm stews over rice, familial backyard grill flavors, quantity of meat or the concept of one-plate-meals, all those comfort boxes get checkmarked.
But beyond the merits of what appears on a plate, it would behoove the city to root for a Bronzeville restaurant revival. Why not start here?
kpang@tribpub.com
Twitter @pang
Yassa
3511 S. Martin Luther King Drive
773-488-5599
yassaafricanrestaurant.com
Open: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday
Recommended dishes: Nem, Dibi lamb, maffe, Yassa chicken, brochette chicken, baobab juice, ginger juice
Check average for two: $45
