If you are Nigerian, however, and east of the Schuylkill, you'd best pull over at Wazobia, its awning long gone from the still- arching ribs, next door to the big, stone Ruffin Nichols Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church.
With chef Abu's lunch counter at Ninth and Noble closed, and the Bukateria, at 40th and Lancaster, several meter clicks away, there's a certain last-exit-before-toll quality regarding Wazobia. (The word, I am told, is a sort of ecumenical African Esperanto meaning "come in" in the three tribal languages of Nigeria, Wa in Yoruba, Zo in Hausa, and Bia in Ibo.)
There is, at a glance, a makeshift, improvisational quality here, the roaring floor fans occasionally blowing the toothpick holders off the tables, the aroma of African sofrito in the air, a single, detachable stove knob urgently slipped on and off several knobless burner stems.
But you can get - besides the standards of West African cookery (a bright, soupy spinach dish flavored with the nutty egusi-melon seed, and a spicy, tomato-y jollof rice, and chile-spiked chicken stews) - soul foods of Nigeria unavailable at its sister cafes. There is, in addition to the gummy balls of fufu, which you pinch off and use to scoop up gravies, another yam-based starch called amala, served with chewy, deep-fried (and tomato-sauced) hunks of goat, beef, chicken or fish.
It is these homey starches that reel in the Nigerian cabbies, engineering students, and occasional office workers. Owner Risikat Bola Jamiu shows me a leathery tuber, explaining how, to make a proper amala, it must be long-simmered, fermented, sundried, and only then ground to the floury powder that will be boiled and patted into mashed-potatolike loaves.
