Cameroonian cooking shines at Mama D's African Cuisine in Boyle Heights.
Claudia Wanki concedes that the name of her 8-month-old restaurant, Mama D’s African Cuisine, reveals the genesis of her cooking only in the broadest sense: 54 nations share the planet’s second largest continent. She says you know that a restaurant specifically serves the food of Cameroon, her home country at a verdant nexus of western and central Africa, when you see two quintessential dishes on the menu: ndolé and eru.
Wanki most loves eru, also a stew of greens but with a different, forest-dense richness. Okazi, the leaves of a climbing vine, are cooked down with chopped pieces of beef stew meat, tripe and cow’s foot until the textures are melded and nearly indistinguishable. Palm oil adds nuttiness and carroty sweetness.
Customers are welcome to sit in the dining room, with booths along the windows and a few tables draped in beautiful embroidered cloths, though the food remains packed to-go. Wanki is often a one-woman operation; she’s still transitioning to sit-down service and delivery remains a big part of her business.None of this should keep you from Mama D’s. The regionality and tremendous care in the cooking clicks smoothly into the jigsaw puzzle of L.A.