There is something truly heartening about walking into a restaurant and finding it so humming with activity that for a split second you’re a little worried about getting a table. Once relaxed into our seats Boubouffe’s large, sunny dining room was happily inviting. Its bright yellow tables and walls with occasional splashes of cornflower blue lent a touch of the Provençal. Ordering was strangely intense, the waitress looking at us as if the very concept of it was baffling, as if we’d wandered into a bank and asked the clerk for half a bottle of Ksara and a steak.
Eventually complying she brought us a creamy kebbé nayé with a hint of mint. The three grilled prawns looked lonely and vulnerable, dozing on a blanket of lettuce, and were a little overpriced at LL33,000. If lacking freshness of taste, they satisfied through sheer weight of body, frighteningly large as they were.