African Food @ Waka Waka, Sungai Ara, Penang

Waka Waka, it is time for Africa? Yes this is really for Africa now, Waka-Waka is a contemporary restaurant located at Sungai Ara, serving the very least expected cuisine - African cuisine! It is such a rarity to seen a restaurant serving African cuisine in Penang, and to date, we actually have no idea what and how are African cuisines look and taste like. Nonetheless, the design of the restaurant does suggest it is an African restaurant.

Waka-Waka restaurant is located at the Tingkat Kenari commercial centre, and easily being missed out of sight. I have personally drove pass there several times but failed to notice it, until recently Shirleen reminded me about this African food restaurant. 

Waka-Waka has a rather simple version of menu to ease the process of decision making. Only a few mains are offered - grilled chicken (breast / thigh), grilled chicken thigh burger, grilled prawn set, and cream sauce spaghetti. The former 2 can be ordered in set as well. In our opinion, ordering in set worth the value more as set order comes with additional 2 side dishes instead of the usual one side dish only (pick one from rice, salad or alloco)

We had a quarter chicken of grilled chicken set (RM 16.90), and was really satisfied with its big portion. It comes with big grilled chicken thigh, which is grilled to perfection. The grilled chicken still retained its juiciness, yet exhibiting its tenderness after grilling. To a certain extent, it tasted alike Nandos grilled chicken, and somehow available at much affordable price.

To fully enjoy the dish, squeeze a slice of lemon onto the chicken for tangy sensation. Then, pour the white sauce provided onto the rice, and add on Waka black sauce depending on your preference of the salty taste. Combination of these 2 sauce onto the rice had transform the dull rice portion into some great sensation, alike the fragrant chicken rice drenched with nice soy sauce. The Waka black sauce should be their homemade sauce, but we felt we had tasted it somewhere. The taste was akin of mixture of Lea & Perrins soy sauce with some other sauces. 

One of the side dishes - Alloco, is definitely of African origin, or to be precise, West African. It is a snack made from frying bananas. Different from the Malaysian version banana fritters, Alloco is served in smaller portion, and has a softer texture and sweeter ending.

As a matter of fact, Alloco is the dish name in Côte d'Ivoire. While in other African regions, it has other names, such as dodo in Nigeria, kelewele in Ghana and etc. This snack is common in Central American too. 

The Mocha (RM 10.90) was one of the thickest we have tasted thus far. By thick, we mean the texture of the coffee and not the strength of the coffee powder. It was enjoyable. 

~End~