Going from street food to fine dining in Lagos
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| Food prepared by Pierre Thiam at Nok By Alara, a restaurant in Victoria Island district of Lagos. [Photo/AFP] |
"Most of the food here is full of oil. And it's mostly carb-based. We used to be farmers and we used to walk for kilometers, which is not the case anymore."
In the kitchen, Ozoz Sokoh prepares snail samosas and chicken with green curry and "scent leaves", a Nigerian plant that resembles the Japanese herb shiso.
During the week, Ozoz works as a geologist for Shell. But in the evenings and on weekends she's known as "Kitchen Butterfly" and cooks delicious food for private clients.
Her dream, like Thiam, is to introduce a more refined kind of Nigerian food.
"I would love us in Nigeria to move from eating because we're hungry, to celebrating Nigerian flavors, textures, colors," she says.
"My dream would be to go to a Nigerian restaurant in Paris, maybe not with three Michelin stars yet, but to see people wowed, interested, curious about it."
(China Daily USA 05/19/2016 page10)
