FOLLY: I first visited Ocean Basket in 2015 and went back about 2-3 times in that year.I found it pretty good for a chain seafood restaurant, and I really liked it. In fact, the sticky toffee pudding was fantastic. It might have been a frozen dessert but it was very good quality.
Fast forward three years later and EDL gets a ton of seafood requests and especially for seafood pasta (we'll come to that later) so I suggested to Nosa that we hit up Ocean Basket to refresh our review.
FOLLY: I started with a glass of white wine before our starter Feta Garlic Bread arrived.Someone is going to call me shady for this, but it's going to be very hard for anyone to mess up garlic bread and thankfully Ocean Basket didn't.
Restaurant Review: Ocean Basket
NOSA:The garlic bread is the stingiest thing I've been served in Lagos. It's literally two bread rolls sliced in half. Look at the tiny cube of feta too!
FOLLY:Sure, they might have used their basic bread rolls and just halfed them but I liked the way it was served in a skillet with excessive garlic butter at the bottom because once we were done with the four pieces they served, I requested additional bread rolls to mop up all that delicious garlic butter.
FOLLY:If I was paying more, I would have needed a dollop at the very least but I'll settle because of the price.
Brötchen (german Rolls With Sunflower Seeds)
FOLLY: Moving on to our mains, if I had a dollar for every time we were asked about best seafood pasta in Lagos, I wouldn't need to save for a ticket to America, I'll just have bought it outright. So at Ocean Basket, I ordered the Seafood Pasta for EDL readers.
FOLLY:When I reflect, I did this so you (the person reading this) won't have to. Although going in, I didn't expect it to be bad because Ocean Basket has most of the ingredients to be successful. When most people imagine seafood pasta, we don't straight up imagine Nigerian style Jollof macaroni, which is what Ocean Basket served.Jollof macaroni with fish, prawns, and calamari is definitely a type of pasta and has seafood in the mix but it's not one would expect in the Ocean Basket context, if I was The Place it'll make perfect sense.
NOSA:If we're keeping it real, most people wouldn't turn their noses up if the cook served this at home. Same thing if you saw it at the office canteen. But when you have to part with a substantial amount of money, it is only right to further scrutinize what exactly you're eating. At roughly $12, you should definitely expect more than jollof pasta. If you take that $12 to Olive Garden, you'll probably get a significantly more ambitious plate. Take the same money to La Taverna and you'll definitely not get this rubbish either.
Year End Function Bread Basket
FOLLY:Everything was very overcooked: the pasta was splitting and the texture of the fish had begun to resemble that of chicken. There wasn't much calamari in there - just a sprinkle.
NOSA:At Ocean Basket, you should never get too fancy. Accept it for what it is and don’t stray from ordering only seafood. Also, keep it simple don’t even think about that sushi you spotted in corner of your eye. That’s what I did when I went with the Prawn & Calamari Combo.
FOLLY: I asked and thankfully their sushi service is out of commission for now because I know some of you people are stubborn and you won't listen to Nosa.
Rustic Whole Grain Sourdough Bread
NOSA:The fries needed salt, but the actual prawn and calamari weren’t bad. These things are probably like second nature to the cooks in the kitchen. Nine times out of ten, it’ll taste the same way when your order it. It’s that type of consistency that keeps places like this in business and not the actual quality of the food.
FOLLY: Somehow they always manage to cook the prawns on their platters to near perfect consistency so I really expected more from the seafood pasta.
NOSA:Ocean Basket only exists as profitable business, I'm assuming they are, because there are no other options. It doesn't mean the food is actually any good, because its just passable. For some reason no one else has thought to set up a strictly seafood restaurant in the most populous city on the West African coast. For that reason alone, we are all suffering under Ocean Basket's tyranny.For a moment you’ll see a memory pass across their eyes. And if you were so inclined you could measure their spit production, because for most of us, there’ll be an immediate saliva release – drooling – in anticipation of something good. It’s practically Pavlovian .
Ocean Basket Lemon Butter Sauce
The memory will most likely include Saturday mornings heading down to Pick n Pay to buy groceries, and stopping outside to pick up a Prego Roll from someone making them (and possibly pancakes) for a school, church or youth group fund raiser. Or just a family side business. Or if you weren’t a Saturday shopper, you’d find someone at the local fete selling them. Even our local Tuis Neiwerheid (popular home industries shops) used to specially make them on a Saturday.
I’ve tried to make my own Prego Rolls over the many, many years I’ve been in the UK, but it’s never quite the same. I think you need that dry sand smell, baking sun on your back and maybe a Savannah to wash it all down with to completely complete the experience. Well. You do the best you can with what you have.
A lot of people don’t know this, but South Africa has quite a strong Portuguese influence. In school we were taught that Jan van Riebeeck ‘founded’ South Africa in 1652 – which I always took to mean he discovered it. It was only later that I realised that actually the first ‘discoverer’ of South Africa was Bartolomeu Dias – a Portuguese explorer, all the way back in 1488.
Seaweed Sourdough Bread
Remember this: “In 1652, het die wind gewaai, toe kom ek met my skippie in by Tafelbaai. Die wind het so gewaai, ons was almal op ‘n klomp. En so kry hy die naam die Kaap van Storms.”
So why the history lesson? Well, most people have eaten or at least seen a Nando’s restaurant at some point. Did you know that it was a chain started in South Africa? By a Portuguese South African. It is to South African food what curry is to British food! People should know this! **
Prego Rolls are Portuguese Rolls – Carcaças Rápidas – dusted in flour, filled with red wine and garlic marinated flash fried steaks, topped with piri piri sauce – or not, and aragula (rocket) – or not. It all depends on who is making and who is eating. Hmmm.. drooling, yep, drooling here.
I Tried Seafood For The First Time
A few years ago I was living temporarily in Australia, and trying to convince a friend that she needed a Thermomix®. Her husband, Jimmy, was very against it, and highly disbelieving when I told him he could even make Portuguese Rolls in it. (Jimmy is from Mozambique. His mother lives with them, and speaks only Portuguese). Jimmy didn’t believe I could make the rolls in the Thermomix®, so when we had a New Year’s picnic a few weeks later, I took along a basket of fresh Portuguese Rolls (those in the picture). Jimmy couldn’t believe I’d made them in the Thermomix®. I did see him have two! (Jenny and Jimmy now own a Thermomix®!) Mini Bread Rolls – you can’t beat a basket of homemade rolls! The perfect size for dinner rolls, sliders & picnic rolls. Easy recipe & only 6 ingredients.
I’ve adapted my popular soft bread rolls recipe for the purpose of making mini bread rolls and mini loaves. I make this tried and tested recipe at least once a week – we love bread here at The Kitchen Shed.
For me there is nothing better than the aroma of freshly baked bread filling your kitchen. Without doubt, this is an easy bread recipe for beginners or seasoned bread bakers alike.
Pumpkin Cranberry Bread Mix
These bread treats are the perfect size for canapés and the possibilities are almost endless. For example, simply load them with your favourite filling or maybe slice the mini loaves and toast them, spread with cream cheese and top off with a little smoked salmon.
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All in all, these mini bread rolls and loaves are just so versatile. While they’re just the right size for dinner rolls, they’re perfect as sliders and picnic rolls or ideal for dunking into a bowl of hot soup.
Quick Tarragon Yeast Rolls
While there are so many good bread flours available, it’s definitely worthwhile trying different brands and noting how your bread turns out.
I’ve used Marriage’s white bread flour but you can use wholemeal bread flour. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend using all wholemeal flour as I find it delivers a rather dense bread.
With this in mind, a 50/50 mix of white and wholemeal flours will give you the best of both worlds;
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