It's very easy in the general run of restaurant going to get locked into a progression of familiar flavours - Italian, Indian, Thai. Chinese, whatever, even English -and they eventually all bed down and become a comfortable round of experience. So it is refreshing once in a while to get hit by a broadside of textures and flavours that are different and make you sit up a bit. The African Kitchen can do this. Unless you're African of course. And it still may then.

It is another resident of the legendary Drummond St and is more of a cafe than a restaurant, though it stays open to 10.30 at night and it does serve alcohol. It is a small room with five tables and a serving bar at the far end. It is a gallery as well, as the name suggests, and the walls are covered in ethnic art - wooden giraffes, elephants, masks etc. which are all for sale. There is a fair amount of African jewellery to be had too.

Starters include Moyin Moyin (beans and tomatoes), akara balls, fried plantain, sweet potatoes, banana rice fritters and casava fritters. We had a kind of pot pourri of all of them and they were excellent - earthy but spicy as well. For mains I could have had oxtail groundnut stew, plantation beef stew, curry goat stew, jerk chicken or fish, but I didn't. I had chicken savanna (boiled and baked and sauted with fresh ginger, lime, orange and herbs). I liked it very much indeed. Truly memorable. It was served with rice and was a whole new raft of flavours (for me anyway) that sort of come at you when you're not looking and are not like anything else and smack you sharply about the face and then kick you up the backside. So I did sit up a bit. And so did she - and she had the fish!

Service was very good. The place is so small that we were served by the chef who was from Africa and talked us through all the dishes. There was another guy behind the bar bit who threw in his two pennorth from time to time as well. Both were genuinely interested in what we thought and were very enthusiastic about their food, emphasising the natural ingredients and the fact that they hardly use any sugar. So it's not only excellent and different but healthy as well. Harry