Newly installed into the Theatre District, Big Momma's is another really welcome addition to the regeneration of the space. I picked up a voucher giving me a 50% discount for booking early which gave me the perfect excuse to take my Momma along to meet Big Momma.
Moving on to the menu, it is certainly interesting and full of dishes that hints first of the tantalising exotic of mysterious Northern African and moves down through the rainforests of the Zambia, all the way down to the South African cape. So far so good.
The waiter took us through the choices and pointed out that they were missing a few items, which was a bit of a warning sign for a restaurant just a couple of weeks after opening. But lets just put that down to teething problems and move on to start with the pepper soup and the Boerewors Sausage Kebab.
The pepper soup was really good, warm, deep and with a film of meaty oil that coated everything with tasty unhealthiness. We were warned that it was warm and the chilli was definitely present, giving us that lovely punch that heat lovers like us can't get enough of. Bobbing around in this bowl of tomato spiked broth were chunks of goat. Now I love goat, but it needs a good lot of cooking, and I mean a lot of cooking which this goat simply hadn't had. Too tough, too chewy and too much wishful thinking but it was the sausage that really started to confused us.
Admittedly we were paying half price and it was a good beef sausage but four chunks of sausage on a kebab stick for £4? Really? It didn't exactly feel like value for money.
Mains were another hit and miss affair I'm afraid, with the Pot Jiekos suffering from a real proportion problem. Not enough sauce to rice and certainly not enough meat on those ox tails bones which again had been criminally under cooked. What sauce there was stood up beautifully with rich flavours and although I spotted a couple of carrots, there simply weren't enough vegetables for my european tastes.
The mchuziwa tungule fared slightly better with more sauce and less carbs. The beef was softer than the ox tail but still not tender enough and again with the veg issue. My mum of all people knows that the African diet isn't exactly heavy on the salad front but we were both crying out for a bit of garnish; at least the sausage came with some lettuce. But both dishes we were missing the heat, the oomph of the pepper soup had gone cold and across the menu of main courses we couldn't find the no-holds-barred African attitude we had been looking for. If fact, the more we looked, the more confused we became because taking individual dishes from across such a huge continent has the effect of muddying the bigger picture. It's not North African, it's not South African and it's not anything in between, so what is it?
But then we had to stop philosophising because it was time for pudding.
Homemade white chocolate brownie with vanilla ice-cream. You may ask what a white chocolate brownie is and after tasting one, while I do question the authenticity of calling something a white chocolate brownie when it is clearly a syrup cake, I would urge you to order one for yourself. It was delicious, no if's no buts. Just delicious.
So where does that leave us? Well, to be honest, I'm just not sure. Big Momma's is clearly still quite confused as to who they are. Offering up dishes from all over Africa from the Mediterranean all the way down to Cape Town without a clear identity would always be difficult but mix that with plates that just don't make the most of the ingredients is a real problem. Apart from in the pepper soup, there didn't seem to be any goat left in the kitchen. Which considering it is the principle form of meat on the African continent and one of the key reasons people would come to an African restaurant (well, that and the spice but we've already covered that) you would hope Big Momma could secure a consistent source before they opened.
But it's not all bad news. I love the idea of Big Momma's and I think MK is crying out for a bit of African vibe but we're just not there yet. They are bringing in music on a Friday night and that may well start to bring some more attitude to the proceedings but in terms of bang for buck, Big Momma's just doesn't cut it. That being said, Mum has already decided we're going back before Christmas to see if they can push things forward (and she did like that soup) so it looks like we will see more of Big Momma, lets hope it's a good thing.
Come on Big Momma, let's see what you can really do.
*You see what I did there?
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