Cafes / Reviews
Chez Saynab – cafe review (Ramadan special)
It’s 9.20pm and a man shifts on his metal chair under the bright lights of Chez Saynab cafe on Stapleton Road.
The sound of the chair leg scraping the floor pierces the silence outside on the empty streets in the final moments before today’s fast ends.
A television with the volume turned down is showing the evening’s Euro 2016 game while a call to prayer plays over the radio behind the front counter where food is beginning to be laid out.
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Most people are at the mosque and some are out the back of the cafe offering a final prayer before they taste their first pieces of food and drink since dawn about 17 hours ago.
Chez Saynab is one of a string of cafes along the bottom section of the usually buzzing Stapleton Road which serves East African food and drink mostly for the East African men who live nearby.
Painted in a lurid bright pink, it is functional place with decor stretching to a single bunch of fake flowers pinned to a wall and a sign saying “Keep Calm and Relax”.
There is no menu here. But when we order food to share on our table a colourful succession of small plates come out with stewed chicken, minced beef, breads and ground spices.
Many of the dishes have been prepared earlier at home by the manager’s wife, or “local government” – a term I will forever treasure from now on.
At risk of falling into a trap of making lazy stereotypes about Muslim culture, I make two basic observations as the cafe fills up as the clock approaches 10pm: there are no women or booze here.
It’s not as bad as it sounds though. From limited forays into similar cafes along Stapleton Road, the culture at a cafe like this is a blend of sipping coffee and talking politics – even if the local government isn’t officially involved.
The first plate comes with four cold chicken samosas, moist and salty inside. The dish is soon followed by a tray of plates accompanied by a larger one of rice, yellowed with turmeric.
There are two separate chicken stews, one curried with vegetables, mild spices, turmeric and cinnamon, and the other finely diced with chopped tomatoes and a heavier saltiness.
The plate of beef mince is simply seasoned and, again, heavily salted. The three main plates are a mixture of Somali, Ethiopian and Djiboutian dishes, roughly reflecting the demographic of the clientele.
They are served with soft white bread for mopping up the sauces and rolled up pieces of anjera, a sourdough-risen flatbread which has a spongy texture like a thick, rubbery scotch pancake. It also has excellent mopping-up qualities.
Eating with your hands is encouraged, although the food is served with a fork mostly for moving the stews around onto plates to be shared.
As the tearing of the bread and mopping of the plates continues, a final dish, doro wat, arrives in a small bowl. Deep red and positively simmering around the edges, the rich curry shows all the signs of being slow-cooked and boiled down over hours.
What’s left of whatever went in is a smooth tomato paste in which sits a chicken thigh on the bone and a whole boiled egg scored around the edges. The dish has an almighty kick in the face of spice, but for the first time in the evening a low salt content.
More anjera is needed for cooling the spice, mopping the juices and acting as the cutlery.
Before the dishes are finished I’m presented with a Somali tea, a milky chai-type brew with whole cardamom pods floating in the top. Cinnamon, mint and cloves are also bobbing on the surface.
Finally, a carrot cake arrives which I’m pretty sure isn’t part of the traditional East African cuisine but nonetheless offers important sugar during hours on end without food.
The football is over and the chat moves onto politics; the EU referendum (they’re voting In here), devolution and the Labour party.
Almost all the tables are now full as I look for the manager who insists the meal costs £5, despite there being no menu and enough food for half the cafe.
Outside, Stapleton Road has regained its buzz at about 11pm as groups gather after breaking the day’s fast before they head home to squeeze in breakfast ahead of sunrise in five hours’ time.
Chez Saynab, 60 Stapleton Road, Bristol, BS5 0RB
07783 935880