African Restaurant in Shanghai???

Any African Restaurants here in Shanghai??    I'm craving.....

Yeah I woulda cooked myself but I don't have all the ingredients..

Is there really a such thing as an African restaurant?  I'm asking because Africa is so many countries and I  imagine that the food varies depending on the region.  Is that true?

Dear Friend and web user!

When talking about african food, please allow me tell you that there is no african food in the specific term (if am wrong, I ask for my Africa continent mates to correct me!). When one can say is African Foods. This for the simple reason that each country has its specific food, taste. A dish that is cooked in Benin can be the same as the one in Togo or Nigeria, but with different name. Something noted in most of countries is that most of the dishes are spicy, not as Sichuan, but the real Hunan Spicy!
Wish you have the chance to try at least 1/3 of the african cuisine!
Good luck!

In the states, African restuarants are identified by country - Ethopian cuisine, Senegalese cuisine, Nigerian cuisine, South African cuisine, etc. and on each menu is the national dish identified with that country. However, since there is a large community of continental Africans in China, A restaurant that represents each of the countries that all of you are from with dishes from each would be REAL INTERESTING. Any cooks and restuarant managers out there with a business plan?

Just found out about this new restaurent.

Chakalaka (South African Food & Western Food)

Location: Downtown Shanghai (HuaiHai Rd W 570, B116)

Lets check it out guys!

I met a lady from SA a few weeks ago who gave me the namecard of her restaurant in Gubei. Will try to find the info and post here.
Would be interesting to compile a small database of African owned or related restaurants, bars, clubs etc in Shanghai and publish it on the site. So if u have such information do not hesitate to post.

To come back to previous posts, indeed there are no such a thing as African restaurant in general as dishes tend to be quite different from country to country. In fact, I am from Togo and the way we cook in my region Kloto is very well different from other parts of the country. But while in China and given the small number of us we don't really have the luxury of asking for specific countries restaurants and there is nothing wrong to celebrate  restaurants from an African country as an African restaurant (in any cases our Chinese friends do not make much a difference). Sure there are differences but you will agree with me that a dish from Kenya would be much closer to another one from Tanzania or Ethiopia than Sichuan or Shanghai cuisine. So let's start from there. Whenever I stumble upon a restaurant from Morocco or Egypt I am always in delight although back home that would be considered foreign cuisine. 

....nothing like African restaurant..........its like saying asian restaurant....eastern....western african...restaurant....that is abit clear if you want to target people from several african countries.....a nigerian and an ethiopian for example........ have nothing in common foodwise...

afropinay, where are the african sisters to cook some food for you?  do you guys get together like that for those living in china?  i mean like social outings at someone's home. 

you know how we africans like to stop and eat at a friend or family members' house.

I used African, cos I wanted African regardless of what type of cuisine 
Ofcourse I know there's a difference btw Nigerian, Ethiopian, Ghanian, Ugandan etc dishes

Khabzela, thanks for that.. We should check it out.. Who is down?? might do some walking on HuaiHuai Lu this weekend, so I'll add it to my itinerary...

Pat, also waiting for the one in Gubei..Please hurry up and find it.

Just like when Chinese talking about western food, we are in fact referring to the food of the whole western world which is in fact many different countries and each of them has its own different kind of food. In the eyes of foreigners, Chinese food is Chinese food but he may be shocked if he expected some Guangdong (the most common form in China Town) but served with Sichuen. My impression of African food is always related to some kind of roasted chickens.  It is good to see more African oriented restaurants setting up in China as it is the sight of a more actively cultural exchange.

i've always used the general term african restaurant as well.  unless i was referring to a specific restaurant then i would call the name.  if someone is inquiring about an african restaurant in my city then i would tell them where they are and describe what type of african restaurant it is. 

It's just a generic term used to describe the continent a food type's originated from. Oh, and i think in China, each place u regard as an African restaurant normally has a particular African people in those area. Lets take for instance, the majority of what we call the African foods are of the NIGERIAN Flavor..

you know promo you brought up an interested point.  the restuarant usually is a product of the environment it is in.  these days i've found that in order to expand the customer service and make more money, these restaurants will also include dishes from other nations that have people living nearby.

a sierra leoneon restaurant not too far from my house also serves egusi, palm butter and other dishes for the nigerians and liberians living around that community.

Interesting...Varieties matters alot..Thus making people to try out different flavors