I’ve taken people to eat in all kinds of restaurants in this city, Mexican, Italian, you name it, but I was always ashamed to take people to Nigerian restaurants because they were not presentable. When the African retail store closed down, I was already well known in Brooklyn for pepper soup. Sometimes the dirtier they are, the better the food, (laughter). The best food is from those local mamas in one corner of the street, maybe in Tinubu Square or something like that. It’s funny because what I enjoy most in Nigeria anytime I go, is to go and eat all those street foods – the “Buka.” And it might not look very beautiful or anything, but every Nigerian knows that’s where you get the best food, not in these fancy restaurants. I went to carpentry school I was there for 4 years. Once I left the store, I became a carpenter. And I must tell you, that’s where the idea of opening a restaurant first came to me. But I was really good at it that, and it became very popular.
It’s just a retail store but we sell pepper soup at night. I worked in an African retail store making pepper-soup. Then I came here in 1996, so that’s 15 years ago. I left Nigeria in 1994, went to Dubai for two years. When I was able to save enough money, I bought my plane ticket and moved here. But the irony was, I was actually making more money than people who were bankers at that time.
When I get there, I change my dress and put this big hat on my face, because I don’t want my friends to see me. When everybody is going to work in the morning, I dress up too very nicely like am going to my father’s shop in Bariga, but instead am going to sell ice cream. I lived in Isale-Eko, where most of my friends are bankers. But my last job was, I used to sell ice cream. What were you doing in Lagos before moving to the United States?
I’m an Igbomina man, but I lived in Lagos all my life. Interview with Lookman Afolayan Mashood by Adeola Oladele-Fayehun, founder and editor-in-chief of. Our goal is to make you hungry for the flavors that immigrants from around the world have brought to the US, and for you to gain a deeper understanding of the people who make, grow, sell and consume food in immigrant communities. Oladele-Fayehu’s video and interview with Lookman Afolayan Mashood, a man who was once an ice cream vendor on the streets of Lagos and is now the owner of Buka, a popular Nigerian restaurant in Brooklyn, NY, fits in with Fi2W’s new Food in Two Worlds™ series. This piece was written by Adeola Oladele-Fayehun and originally published on, an online magazine celebrating Africans in the diaspora. Buka, a Nigerian restaurant in Brooklyn, NY.
0 kommentar(er)
