MamaPut a place to meet and eat a variety of West African cuisine
GREENSBORO — The city's newest African restaurant has become its only one with a dining room because of some closings and shufflings.
MamaPut Afrikana Restaurant & Kitchen opened in March at 1625 Stanley Road, just off Wendover Ave. near the intersection with Interstate 40.
MamaPut is owned primarily by Living Waters Greensboro, a mission of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, as well as a few individual investors.
Tunde Adenola, a senior pastor at Living Waters, said that the restaurant is a for-profit business, though the church operates as a nonprofit.
In fact, the impetus for the restaurant was to support the church. "We wanted to provide another source of revenue," he said.
Adenola's wife, Modupe, manages the restaurant, which is open six days a week.
The Adenolas are natives of Nigeria who came to the United States in 2000, then moved to Greensboro two years later. They said they are serving authentic West African cuisine at the restaurant, offering a taste of their native food for fellow Africans as well as the community.
"We also wanted to provide jobs" to fellow Nigerian immigrants, Mudupe explained.
The name MamaPut is slang for a "Nigerian street vendor" and the restaurant serves a variety of West African traditional dishes.
The food can be a bit spicy, but not all dishes are. Common ingredients include ginger, garlic, onion, bell peppers, curry powder and greens.
The restaurant serves a handful of African soups ($7.99), starting with the popular egusi, made with ground melon seeds along with greens in flavorful broths. Other soups include a spicy vegetable soup (chockfull of greens), okra, gbegiri (bean) and ayamase (spicy pepper and onion).
Soups are thick — almost more of a braise — and are typically ordered with fufu or amala. MamaPut makes its fufu and amala with white yam (while other places often use cassava). In each case, it is boiled into a starchy mash. Amala is a darker version of fufu that starts with fermented and sundried yam.
The restaurant also serves the classic jollof rice, with tomatoes, chiles and spices. There also is fried rice made with ginger, garlic, corn and other vegetables.
Either type of rice comes on a plate with plantains and a choice of fried chicken, beef, goat, fish or such specialty items as cow skin. Most plates run about $15.
Other items on the menu include meat patties (kind of like a baked empanada, made with ground beef) and moin-moin (also called moi-moi, a savory steamed bean pudding).
The restaurant has about 48 seats and offers counter service. Beverages include water and soda, but not alcohol.
MamaPut fills a void in the city's African restaurant scene. You might remember Saint Louis Saveurs, a Senegalese restaurant, which closed this year on Wendover Avenue.
Kingdom Café, on Elm-Eugene Street, currently offers only takeout and catering.
African Sister, which operates in the City Kitch shared-use kitchen on Milner Drive, also is mostly takeout (though City Kitch has four seats next to its pickup window).
Da Jollof Spot is a popular food truck in Greensboro but lacks a brick-and-mortar location.
Taste of Ethiopia left its longtime space on Westgate Drive but is said to moving to new quarters this fall.
In the meantime, that leaves MamaPut as the sole dine-in option. "There is not an African restaurant in Greensboro where you can (dine in) and meet people," Tunde said.
