La Gout Afrique is a brilliant little gem in a suburban corner milk bar

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What do you buy from a milk bar? Cheezels, ice-cream, dishwashing liquid and emergency Tim Tams. What about jollof rice, fried plantain and fufu? No, that is inconceivable – unless you’re at La Gout Afrique, a classic Aussie corner store that’s also a surprising West African eatery.

It’s in a quiet part of Reservoir – I drove past sunset-drunk kangaroos to get here – and trade was slow. But between us, surely we can get this brilliant little business as busy as it deserves to be.

Evette Quoibia and Esther Moses renovated a tired old milk bar and reopened it bright and shiny in February. In May, they launched the restaurant which consists of a few tables under fluoro in front of the shopping aisles. It’s exceedingly simple but serving food doesn’t need to be complicated when it’s done with care and a dream that’s buffed and shined with every order.

Just turn up and you’ll order from an “everyday menu” of seven simple but delicious dishes that reflect the food eaten in Liberia, the owners’ country of origin, and Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the nations where war drove their families before they came to Australia as refugees in the mid-2000s. Plan a day ahead and you can order a greater selection by phone.

The essential dish is jollof rice, which is eaten all over West Africa. Long-grain rice is cooked in a spiced broth of capsicum and tomato, staining it red, every grain plump with flavour.

Have it with braised beef in onion-rich gravy or stewed chicken that falls from the bone. Both versions come with golden-fried plantain, starchy and sweet.

Okra soup with fufu – on the order-ahead menu – is a hearty stew of chopped okra, spinach and goat meat. Palm oil is an important West African ingredient: it brings a glossy richness and fiery gleam to this sturdy dish. Fufu is a soft starchy ball perfect for breaking apart and swiping through the soup. It’s made from ground, dried cassava, stirred through hot water until it thickens and the cook’s arms are impossibly tired.

Other great dishes to order ahead are the eggplant stew, attieke (a kind of cous cous made from cassava), and egusi, Nigerian soup thickened with ground melon seeds.

Quoibia has loved feeding people since she was a little girl; she also worked with her mother at a snack stand back in Africa. “Why not bring my food to the world?” she asked herself. It’s a great question and I’m so glad she couldn’t see a reason to say no.

The milk bar-dining room isn’t licensed but you could grab a malty, syrupy Malta Guinness – a Cameroonian favourite – from the soft drink fridge.

By the way, do you need Vegemite or a birthday card? You’re at La Gout Afrique: everything is possible.

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