The Konga Cafe

Last Sunday Patrick and I decided to Saskaspoon for lunch. We shook the iPod and were pleasantly surprised to get Jake's, a lunch place downtown neither one of us had been to in a long, long time. But, being a lunch place downtown, it was closed on Sundays, as they serve primarily business people, and businesses tend to be closed on on Sundays.

Sigh.

We shook the iPod and got...The Konga Cafe!


(Aside: The Konga Cafe is not new to us. It's down the street from my house, for goodness' sake. To the gods of the Internet, I implore you: SEND US SOMEPLACE NEW. This is, like, the fourth time in a row we've been sent to place we've literally been to in the past few months. But I'm not complaining. After all, we could have gotten a MacDonald's. Or a Seven-Eleven. Dammit. Now I've cursed us. Guess where we'll be going next?)

The food at the Konga Cafe is good. Actually, it's better than good. It's tasty, the portions are ample, the ingredients are simple and very nicely spiced. Plus it has a nice ambiance -- it has a Caribbean sort of vibe, but unlike lots of "place-themed" restaurants, this one doesn't feel fake. It's a sort of messy, sort of homey kind of place, with lots of stuffed monkeys, flags, and paper flowers for decor. The place mats are just red, green, and yellow printer paper. It's the only place I'm able to tolerate reggae music.

It's owned, I think, by a couple from the Caribbean, so they knew what they're talking about. Their hours are "12ish - 10ish", for example, and each meal starts with a free johnnycake, which is a deep-fried ball of dough. (I have often wanted to have an International Fried Dough festival, because every culture has a deep-fried dough something-or-other. It could be great. You could have paramedics on call for the heart attacks that would be the logical outcome of such a festival.)

Patrick and I each got the "special", figuring that since we'd eaten pretty much everything else on the menu, we might as well get the dish that might not be there next time.  The special was a breaded, deep-fried chicken breast with a curried, savoury mushroom gravy and a bowl of creamy red-bean and chicken soup. It was awesome. And we were so full by the end of our lovely meal, considering we'd just consumed basically one whole chicken each.

At one point the chef (one half of the ownercouple, I think) came towards our table and she was all dancey-- like she danced out of the kitchen, danced over to us, asked if we'd enjoyed the meal, and then danced away.

And that's it. The Konga Cafe did not disappoint, but this Saskaspooning trip wasn't full of crazy stories or strange adventures. I guess that's just the way it is with your neighbourhood restaurant -- sometimes you just want to go in, get your free johnnycakes, dance a bit with your chef, and leave a good tip. Sometimes that's all you need.