Chris Ihidero Unedited: Bonjour Café, Goodies Supermarket, we have a problem!

By Chris Ihidero

I am sure that by now, many of you think that I work for the Nigerian Complaints Commission or some similar agency. I don’t. And, I swear by all that is holy, I do not usually complain. God sees my heart. It is just that all the food places in and around Ikeja met and decided that their main goal this year is to frustrate my life.

I am a grubido. I like my food. More than the food, I like eating out. Seeing that I write for this newspaper, which doesn’t pay me, I am not rich. This means that I somehow have to carefully balance my love for eating out and the realities of my pocket. All I want is good food that is reasonably priced and an enabling atmosphere to eat the food. How hard can it be to provide this? I cannot understand why the devil of poor food and poorer service delivery has decided to mount her headquarters in Ikeja. And this particular devil has to be female, since the multitasking capacities are clearly beyond the capabilities of a male devil.

How do I explain what happened last Saturday? Let me try: I and the unfortunate woman who shares my life decided to go have breakfast somewhere we hadn’t had breakfast before, just anywhere around Ikeja. While shopping a while ago (READ: She shops, I obediently push the trolley and follow her about) at Goodies Supermarket on Mobolaji Bank-Anthony Way, we noticed that they had a food place upstairs and marked it for a visit someday. So we went there. We got there a little before 11am. The person behind the counter took us through the menu list and answered our questions. I began salivating. We decided what we wanted and I salivated some more. So we placed our orders and it was then, after at least 15 minutes of conversation, the person behind the counter declared with a smile: ‘Buht de tin is dat we are verly buuzzly now o.’ I didn’t get it at first. I looked around and there was no customer but us. Busy? How can they be serving nobody? So, I asked: ‘Do you mean you cannot serve food right now?’ And he replied: ‘Yehz. We ah buuuzzly because hawa mehshin have spoil.’ Bloody hell, they are BUSY fixing a machine at 11am on a Saturday and cannot be bothered fixing me something to eat! I stormed out.

We drove to the newly refurbished Total petrol station on the same road. After it reopened, I noticed a signpost outside it saying ‘Bonjour Café’ I immediately put two and two together and concluded that some French experience was about to be had in a place like that. I dreamt of hot chocolate-filled croissants, pretty cakes made by delicate fingers, smoky coffees…you get the picture, right? You can then imagine into how many places my heart broke when I walked into this Bonjour Café of a place and saw engine oil on the menu! I mean, there are only two types of café in Nigeria: food café and Internet café. When a Nigerian sees café, he immediately thinks food, unless there’s Internet before the café. I walked into Bonjour Café to see only few miserable pieces of bread and a Nescafé coffee machine. That’s ALL the food that was available.  And I wasn’t going to touch that bread for all the Seraphs in heaven. The other items on the shelves were brake fluid, engine oil, grease and the likes. Never has a place been so irresponsibly named, NEVER. How do you translate ‘Iya meji loun je oku igbe’ to English?

I finally found salvation in the hands of the Lebanese. Or perhaps they are Syrians…who knows? Oasis Supermarket, also on Mobolaji Bank-Anthony Way, is a fantastic place for grocery shopping. That’s what the wife says. And she had commanded that we shall continue grocery shopping there even with Shoprite coming to Ikeja. While pushing the trolley behind her lordship one of those days, I noticed that a Lebanese café had opened inside the supermarket. We went in, browsed the menu hurriedly and I decided to have some bread and humus! It’s a small place, filled of course with people from that part of the world. We were the only black people there, except for waiters and kitchen staff. The wife ordered some pizza. When my humus came, it came with abundant olive oil, a plate of vegetables (fresh cucumber, onions, tomatoes, pickled cucumber and olives) and of course, flat bread.  I asked for some diced chicken too. It was a totally enjoyable experience, all for N1200. The pizza was great too.

God sees my heart that I want to write about ‘important’ things like Boko Haram, Israel Vs. Pakistan, Kim Kardashian’s breast size and the likes, but these food sellers in Ikeja won’t just let me be great.

 Sigh.