[music] -Jollof rice is West Africa's prized possession.

Jollof rice is so popular, that countries literally fight about who makes the best jollof.

The Ghanaians say that their jollof is the best.

The Nigerians say that their jollof is superior.

The Senegalese say, "You are both fighting for second place," because they created the jollof.

Who then makes the best jollof?

[music] [background conversation] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to this beautiful production of West African culture.

My name is Eros.

I found that entertainment through food is my calling.

That was because the love that I actually projected was a love of hosting and entertaining people and taking people on a whimsical journey of some sort.

I had started to travel around different parts of the world, hosting dinners with friends and family, and friends of friends, and telling them the stories of the West Africans through the food.

Los Angeles, the audience got it the most.

On this menu, a young man by the name of Celestine traveled on a journey to West Africa to experience culture.

He did not land in Ghana or Nigeria first.

He went to Togo.

He also ventured to Benin.

He found beans in a very special way.

The Yoruba people call it Ewa.

Honey beans cooked slow and steady.

The palm oil meets with onions and a variety of cheese.

We serve it with a flat bread, an agege bread flattened and fried in a plantain oil.

Our first course tonight takes us to the streets of Togo and Benin.

The concept of the menu is truly a story.

The story changes every time.

The story is channeled through a character that has experienced certain things and flavors, and those flavors have come together on a plate.

Every single one of them is a very West African story.

Some Nigerian or most Nigerian, and the rest, of all different parts of West Africa.

The different menus have been different characters.

I found that my father and mother have played the largest roles in the characters.

My grandmother as well.

On experience of a friend of mine, for example.

I merged them all into one story, so that it's easy to consume.

Celestine heads to the shores of Ghana, received by a friend by the name of Kweku, and he experiences the nightlife in Ghana.

He said, "Kweku, I've tasted a few things here and there, but as we're coming up to five o'clock in the morning, I need something that can, as we say, hold belly."

Kweku said, "I got you."

Kweku takes Celestine to a hole in the wall, where as he walks in, he sees the women who are pounding plantains and yam into a fufu, and another woman who is stirring a pot of soup.

He says, "I got two things for you.

I got plantain fufu, and I also got a peanut light soup."

One of the things that my father had said to me before he passed.

God rest his soul.

[Nigerian language] "To thy self, first be true."

Nigerian culture had never gotten the kind of respect that it has begun to acquire today.

All it took was people to thy self, first be true.

Through the different art forms.

When I found my voice, I started to sing.

When I found the stage, I started to act.

Then my mother wanted to open a restaurant because my grandmother owned a restaurant, and it was her turn.

I bought a book called Starting and Running a Restaurant for Dummies.

I went back home to help my mother open a restaurant.

On my 21st birthday, my mother says, "Happy birthday.

It's yours."

You have entered the giants of Africa.

Nigeria is the ugliest, most beautiful country in the world.

You arrive in the city of Lagos, and the noise never stops.

From someone who was born in the south, plantain had always been a huge part of our upbringing.

It was something that Celestine had heard so many, many times about.

Every time you hear fufu, it will come with egusi.

Here's another version of egusi.

Roast plantains sautéed in brown butter and suya, a very Nigerian spice.

Blend it into a puree and fill it into an agnolotti.

Palm oil is added into this egusi.

Then it's going to be blended with basil, garlic, and parmesan over the Nigerian red stew.

West Africa is a huge part of the African continent.

The West Africans are where you find the Nigerians, the Ghanaians, the Senegalese, the Togolese, the Cameroonians, the Congolese, the Guinea, and it goes on.

Cuisine of West Africa is very bold.

My spicy is bold spicy.

My sweet is bold sweet.

My umami is bold umami.

Traditionally, you wouldn't get all of those on one plate.

I cook the way I cook because that's how I like to eat.

-Hello.

-[Nigerian language] Hey.

-Welcome to Sola's African Market.

-It's me.

-Oh, it's you.

-It's me.

It's me.

It's just me.

-Hi, how are you?

-I'm very well, thank you.

How are you?

-Oh, good to see you.

-Good to see you.

Good to see you.

-How's everything?

-We thank God.

We thank God.

-How's business?

-You're making all the money in America.

-[?]

-How's it going?

-It's going very well.

-This is one of my favorite places to get local groceries for the restaurant.

I definitely want some iru, which I think is in here, right?

These guys are, they're our own.

I call them our Nigerian truffle.

They're these fermented locust beans that they just add this flavor of umami.

It really smells like home.

It is stinky, but there's no way to make a good red stew, Nigerian red stew, or something like Ofada without locust beans.

We'll use this in our iru red stew, which we emulsify.

I wish you could smell it.

It smells like home.

I'm definitely running low on some palm oil, and these are really, really, really good.

I use them in making the iru red stew as well.

A lot of our stews and soups start off with this palm oil, which comes from the red palm fruit itself.

Now, I have to highlight this, guys, because I think we talk about this a lot.

In America, people call sweet potato yams.

Now, these are real yams, and they're white on the inside.

We boil them, we fry them, we pound them, we steam them.

This is what is used in making the pounded yam, which is one of the forms of fufu that everyone loves.

All right.

You can charge me up now, but I have to ask, how long have you been here in LA, and how long have you had this shop for?

-I've been in LA for like 40 years, -and I had the first shop-- -Oh, you're older than 40?

[laughs] -I see you do more than just African food.

-You also do some fabrics.

-Some fabrics, yes.

-Even hair as well.

Yes.

-We have to make our people happy.

Whatever makes them happy, I'm here to do it.

-Thank you for being here, -because I don't know what I would do -Thank.. -Thank you.

[laughs] -if you weren't here.

Where .. all these things?

-Thank you very much.

It's always good to see you.

-Ile means home.

Ile means home in the Yoruba language of the Western people of Nigeria.

It's something my mother used to say, charity begins at home.

I knew that when I moved here, I was always going to start from home.

As soon as I got the visa, the first thing that came to mind was, "Where am I going to live?

How am I going to afford it?"

Well, I'm going to do dinners there, so at least it will pay for itself.

I can see that a bunch of other people do pop-ups.

We're going to call it a pop-up, and we're going to find a place that will be decent enough.

What I really wanted to do that I hadn't seen yet was a true chef's table where you're sitting and dining at the chef's dining table.

I sit here to have breakfast every morning.

I've never heard of anyone who left here and said they wanted to stop by and buy anything on the way to eat because [Nigerian language].

You eat till your heart content.

A single West African country makes jollof different.

In order to avoid confusion and to avoid distraction even more so, we created the unity jollof.

The jollof that brings us together as one.

My ethos is that we are stronger together as one than we are separated.

The unity jollof combines the Nigerian with the smoking spice; the Ghanaian, with the perfumed rice, in our case, the basmati; and the Senegalese, with the use of the very heavy vegetable stock served with suya, a Nigerian Street food where a spice blend of garlic, ginger, chilies, salt, stock cubes, and key ingredient peanuts, seasoned over a lamb, grilled to perfection.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will enjoy this course, our main course, the unity jollof.

Fabu, my father, used to say that all the time.

Fabu which mean to create a story.

It's not a lie, but it's not the truth, fictional reality, if that makes sense.

It's like this is what happened, but I have made it more interesting just like actually what's happening with my dinners, where if you put it all together, that's not one person'.. but every single detail of everything that I have done, is a reality just not the way that I have put it together.

[music] Celestine comes back home, tells me this story, and all I can think about is how dramatic everything has been.

When I thought about how to finish this menu, I felt if I was one of you, I would want to sit down watch this over some popcorn.

The peanut oil cake, decadent but light, chopped with the cashew nuts, creates a perfect boundary for the plantain ice cream, and because I am dark and caramel, sweet and salty, a little bit of spice, the caramel chili is dressed perfectly over all of it.

Really and truly, you can achieve what you set your mind to, especially if you speak it into existence and you act accordingly.

You have to walk in that same path.

You can't just say it, you have to say, believe it, and walk in it.

That's how I got here.

Cut.