(upbeat reggae music)
When you come here like immigrant,
you don't have enough money.
You don't have a credit, you don't have nothing.
Here when I open, everything is my own pocket.
Here we serve Senegalese food.
And it's the only Senegalese restaurant in Michigan.
How many years now?
Maybe since like six months.
So, brand new?
Brand new.
So as I open it, the same day, the next day
everybody coming and the Detroit newspaper they come
here eat and they say oh man we gotta put this in the news.
We gotta put this in the paper.
That's why I have all the customers.
So the name of the restaurant is named after your wife?
(laughs)
Yup, she's right here next to me cooking.
Hello. Hello.
And you also have your mother in here cooking, Maty?
Oh yeah.
It's a family thing?
Family thing, yup.
Like the chicken, it's the best chicken in the whole town.
That's what the people say.
We put a little bit mustard so we cook it like high.
When we done with that we have to fry it.
(jazz music)
That's the sauce we dip the chicken.
So it's mustard in there, black pepper, garlic, vinegar,
colored peppers.
Season is called like jumbo.
That's the magic. Yup.
(jazz music)
We're gonna make like the grilled fish.
So that's the whole fresh tilapia here.
So the fish have it's own sauce too.
Garlic, mustard, lemon, pepper, paprika, and the jumbo.
So we call it like "poisson braise" you know,
poisson mean like fish.
So there was French influence ?
In Senegal yeah?
We speak Wolof, the second language is French.
I love cook, he love eat.
(laughter)
Look the belly.
Peanut butter soup.
They're called mafe.
My customers asking me about it everyday.
(upbeat jazz)
Peanut buttered stew.
Cooked-down with peanuts and tomato paste.
Crispy spring roll wrapper.
Some braised chicken? Yeah.
Delicious man.
This is the dish that everyone's been coming here for.
Yes.
The chicken yassa. The crispy chicken, yup.
I'm like speechless right now. (laughs)
The onion sauce, that yassa.
The lemon and mustard ?
Oh that's delicious.
You came to America at what age?
I came to America at 25 years old.
I have my uncle over there.
I come to the New York airport.
They put me in a limo.
Cause the guy was limo driver.
(laughter)
He come pick me up in a limo.
I said oh my god!
This is America.
(laughter)
The first thing I see, they have a big chicken
in the window and I said oh my god that's a big tail
let me buy this.
In Africa, you cannot eat chicken like that everyday
'cause only boss people.
Oh, okay.
The next day I see some Senegalese people from country.
They're selling some umbrella, purses.
The first day I sell like almost 400 dollars.
I said wow, this is a lot of money.
I wake up six in the morning the next day
and as soon as I started selling it,
one guy come say, he said oh police.
I was very scared when I was in jail
because I don't know nothing.
When I go to the courthouse, the judge told me
you're gonna do community service.
What day you wanna do it?
I said no, I wanna do it today.
'Cause I wanna leave this today.
That must have been a lot of emotion going through it.
From this high of being in America
and then what prompted you to say I gotta
move to Detroit now?
I have a friend of mine here and he said man come over
here you get two jobs.
So when I come here I work in a Applebee's restaurant.
And I work at Tim Hortons, it's a bakery.
I work Applebee's 2 to 11 and go to Tim Hortons
at one in the morning till 10:00 am in the morning.
Sleep like four five hours and Uber come out.
Uber I drove for one year and Maty kept telling me
why can't we open a restaurant?
And everybody in Michigan love their food.
Actually all the African people here, they know them.
We come here and open this one.
The city is still a long ways from where it was.
Yeah but back in the around 2008, and ten
to ten to eleven man, it was crazy.
But now it's coming back up.
A lot more Africans are coming to Detroit?
Yeah so we're gonna make big change here in this area.
When you come back here next year or two year
you're gonna see it's gonna be African town.
And you're right in the center of it.
Right in the center.
First restaurant in Africa town.
(laughter)
That's history.
It's a great introduction into Senegalese food.
Thank you very much man.
Thank you.
I'm gonna eat here and put my face down
into the rest of this food.
Thank you.
- [Man] The poblano, the one we make it has 22 ingredients.
We have cinnamon, oregano, all the seeds,
chocolate, raisins, garlic, nuts.