Restaurant Review: Independence Day at Yellow Chilli

Hey y'all! Happy Monday, so this post is kinda late because it was meant to be my Independence Day or shortly after post but one thing always leads to another and you know... Anyhow, on October 1st I went to lunch with two of my friends from primary school Deola and Mosope. Yup, THROWBACK! Haha. It was meant to be a slightly bigger reunion but a lot of people dropped out at the last minute so it was a nice girly day for three instead.

We all met at "Yellow Chilli" in Ikeja with empty stomachs and eager anticipation and in the end, we were glad the boys didn't turn up! Read on to find out why...

For those who don't know Yellow Chilli is more or less a fancy buka. Or that's what Mosope thought anyways, lol. They serve all sorts of Nigerian food and do a lot of soups and semi-solids (swallows). They need a 30 minute lead time to prepare your chosen soup though because they do it all from scratch for every order. I really like that about them because it means that unlike most other typical bukas, you're unlikely to hear "Food has finished". Lol.

On arrival I got a Chapman, because really what other drink would you get on Independence Day if not a Chapman? Chapman is a Nigerian cocktail and different people have different recipes but the basis is always the same: an orange flavoured drink (Fanta), a lemony flavoured drink (Sprite or Bitter Lemon), Angsturra Bitters and Grenadine. The one I had was actually a little darker than chapman normally is and was also a lot sweeter so my Chapman aficionado senses tell me that they used some sort of blackcurrant cordial instead of grenadine.

After we ordered our food we got catching up and gisting on all the most recent happenings of our lives and I must say it was a lot of fun. But nothing can really compare to the moment that our food arrived... I must say I was positively salivating. We all decided on pounded yam (the real deal NOT poundo) as our swallow of choice and had three different soups for variety. For starters my eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach and I order a portion of Nkwobi for us to share.

I had Edika-Ikong which I really believe is the South-South's version of Efo-Riro.

Deola had Banga Soup which has palm oil as a basis.

And Mosope had White Soup aka Nsala which is quite a healthy option because it's apparently not cooked with any oil at all... Is this true my Nsala lovers?

Side note: I really love how the photos came out, it was my first time using my iPhone 6 which I got as a belated birthday present and I think the camera quality is off the chain!

By the time we were done eating we could barely move. I'm not even sure we finished everything on the table but we definitely made a huge dent. The service at Yellow Chilli is decent and the waiters are quite friendly and the food is GOOD!! Like proper GOOD, GOOD! The price is a lot higher than your average buka but to be fair, this is a restaurant not a buka and my main cost only N2300! I also like the fact that you can add whatever extras of meat and chicken you want into your dish, at an additional cost of course.

It was a lovely day and a lovely catch up with the girlies and I all but rolled myself to watch the movie "October 1" but more on that later.

Here's my final say

Food- 8.5 (because it was slightly cold)

Service- 8

Ambience- 9

Overall- 8.5

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