Buka New York
“I had the goat stew and my friend had the egusi with pounded yam.”
“I mimicked them, but the fufu didn't seem to soak up the sauce as well as rice or bread would have.”
“When I have Nigerian eats with my favorite Nigerian gal this place is a must!”
Buka New York
Takes Reservations: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Happy Hour: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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First time I have tried Nigerian food and it definitely did not disappoint!
My friend recommended this place and stated that it was one of the few authentic Nigerian restaurants located in the city.
I came with a huge group of people and we sampled everything from:
1) Suya- which is thinly sliced beef sprinkled with a a dry type of rub. It almost reminded me of a cross between beef jerky and steak. It was delicious and accompanied with red onions to balance out the spiciness of the dish.
2) Dundun- which is a root that they fry into potato like wedges. It resembles yuca fries and came with this rich fire- roasted red pepper sauce.
3) For the main course all of us ordered Stews. So how it works is that you choose a sauce, a "fu fu", and a meat. I chose the "pounded yam fu fu" – which is basically yam that is pounded (by hand I must add) into a thick consistency, and the end result is that it looks like a piece of bread. You then take pieces of the "bread" and dip it into the sauce. I chose the "egusi sauce" which was this hearty spicy spinach sauce. I also sampled my other friend's sauces, including okra, efo, and Gbegiri, but I liked mine the best. The chicken that came with the sauce and yam, was oh so tender, fall off the bone goodness.
But I must warn all of you- all the stews were extremely spicy. My one friend, who is the queen of spicy food, started crying. I had to keep downing my food with water and Dodos.
4) DODO- succulent and caramelized plantains, paired really well with the our stews.
5) Jollof rice- extremely flavorful yet spicy rice. It was good but too spicy for my palate,I was only able to take two bites.
Unfortunately they ran out of meat pies that day that we were there, so that was the only thing we didn't get to try.
This place is amazing. Hearty and filling food for a great price. Definitely not for the faint hearted, so come in with an open mind and leave with a full stomach.
I want to start off by saying that the staff here are very nice but they seemed very under staffed (two waitresses and two kitchen staff). There were two tables with 9 people, one table with 4 people and three tables with 2 people. Not to mention the waitress had to take care of the take out and bar.
So on average, it takes about an hour before your food is brought to your table. So don't come too hungry. I must give them a lot of credit, all food is made to order, which is the cause of the food delay.
I ordered the red snapper with eba and egusi. This is a very common dish in Nigeria so my expectations were very high when I ordered this dish. I am Nigerian and grew up on this food so coming to a Nigerian owned establishment comes with certain expectations. The sauce was not as spicy as I expected and it was lacking in a certain flavor. Nigerians flavor food a certain way and when I got my meal, I felt disappointed.
I wish I could say I was the only one that felt this way but my little cousin that's visiting from Nigeria was not impressed with her food either.
One of the problems I find with going to an "authentic" restaurants is when they become too popular, a lot of the authenticity goes away to satisfy the new comers. Stick with your traditional way of cooking but inform the customer of the spice level and make some accommodations to make it a little less spicy. Don't sacrifice the authentic flavor which made you popular to accommodate a select few!
When it comes to food from The Motherland, Nigerian isn't on the top of my list. I suppose I like more sauces on my food, and I've found Nigerian dishes to be on the dry side. Nevertheless, I thought it would be great to check out a Nigerian spot with a group of Nigerian homies on a nice Saturday night.
Food:
We ordered a variety of dishes. I specifically had the suya (thinly sliced grilled beef in Nigerian spices), jollof rice and efo sauce. All was just okay. The suya spices were good and the meat was tender, albeit a little well done for my taste. My friend ordered the fish pepper soup, which she enjoyed (note that there were a lot of bones). Another friend ordered the pof pof, which are little Nigerian donuts — they remind me of zeppoles. I liked them.
Service:
This is where this restaurant needs to do better. The restaurant was not particularly full, but service was, let's say, the opposite of expeditious. After finally dropping off our bill, the waitress took nearly 20 minutes to come back to collect our payment. Twice I got up to flag her down because this was just ridiculous. People got places to go, nah mean?! She finally came to pick it up, but quickly returned because the restaurant can only take four credit cards per table. We should have been informed of this from the onset. So here we go trying to divvy out cash when most people didn't have enough of it to cover the cost of their meal (so I ended up overpaying. The joy). The waitress finally returned to collect our cards and cash but once again took 15-20 minutes to return. One of my friends had to leave at some point during this time, too. This was a again ridiculous. Either Buka needs to hire another person to work the tables during dinner hours or this waitress needs to learn to multitask.
Wow. I never had Nigerian before my friend took me here. She's a regular and knows most of the staff and owners.
I sat in the bar area up front, but he ceilings were super high and the back area is reminiscent of a beer hall.
There were musicians playing music and a very positive vibe. My friend got me a cocktail that was interesting to say the least. It was peppers, vinegar, and alcohol, at least that's what it tasted like. I was glad to try something unique, but it wasn't for me. So I stuck with the wine.
The ambiance is dark and could use a bit more lighting to enhance the vibe.
The bathrooms are well maintained and cleaned.
I had a whole bony fish, Jollof rice (amazing), seared shrimp. It was all delicious. Very comforting. It didn't feel too heavy at all. Everything was perfectly seasoned and simple. It was all spicy just how I like it.
Some items on the menu weren't available. I'm looking forward to going back and trying something new. This was an excellent introduction to Nigerian food.
We were brought here by a friend who recommended this place as the best Nigerian restaurant in NYC. BIG WARNING was the service is very, very slow. We figured we've seen slow service in NYC, no biggie, and we were going with the big group so we'd deal. OMG, slooooooow service was no exaggeration.
Our party of 8 arrive at 630 and did not finish our meal until almost 10 pm. With this came 5 orders of appetizers and 8 entrees. The food came out when it was ready to come out, in no particular order, in no particular fashion. There were entrees that came out before appetizers and we ordered two Akara's which came 30 minutes apart, for some reason.
We tried a variety of different items on the menu: dundun, dodo, akara, grilled red snapper, pof pof, beef fufu and ogbono sauce, suya steak, and suya appetizers. The food was interesting and different, there was nothing we could compare it to. The food was enjoyable, except for the suya steaks, which didn't come until 9pm and they were dry.
We're not sure if the food just takes way too long to prepare, or if the service just takes way too long to arrive, but it was way long. We really have no idea how a restaurant can make money if the tables have no turnover in one night. From the time we sat, til when we left, there was only one party at each table. Nobody new came, no idea how the restaurant profits. The low stars are just due to the lack of service and the long wait.
I grew up in Nigeria, in Igbo land, and left as a teenager, and so I've only had Nigerian food 3 times in the last 25 years. Each time (twice in London, and the third time on a trip to Nigeria itself) has been a wildly nostalgic delight. I had been dying to try Buka for a while as it appears to be maybe the only straight up Nigerian restaurant in NYC (the others seem to be West African blends).
I went there for dinner with a (Nigerian-food-newbie) friend on one of the coldest nights of the year (9 degrees F) and even though our sweetheart of a server put us near the back heater, towards the end of the meal, I was freezing (the restaurant's temperature appears to be a chronic issue judging from other reviews). The service was another frequent complaint I read about, and while it's true that our food and palm wine came out pretty slowly, we weren't in a hurry, and our server was so cute and friendly, it didn't bother me. The place itself is pretty cool – high ceilings, brick walls, industrial chic.
We ordered a ton of food and actually managed to put most of it away despite it being too much food for 2 people. First the apps – we ordered 4 because we wanted to try as much as possible: the akara (fried bean cakes with spicy sauce) were great. I heart moi moi (steamed honey bean cake with egg and fish) and Buka's version is yummy and super spicy. The suya (grilled meat with spices) was disappointing – bland (unflavoured, unspicy, unsalted). My friend wanted to try the large land snails, but we somehow ended up with the goat head instead (though it seems others haven't liked the snails). The isiewu (goat head) had a delicious (spicy) sauce but the cartilage-like texture of the meat weirded us both out.
We shared a main entree after all that – we got "mixed meat" because my friend thought that sounded funny and awesome. And for our starch, we ordered fufu (pounded yam) with egusi sauce (which is one of my favourite sauces/stews – melon seeds, spinach, and dried fish). It was great. The meats were tender and delicious, the sauce totally awesome, and the fufu thick and filling. The other thing I forgot to try and am very sorry I didn't was jollof rice (a tomato rice pilau), which is my favourite rice dish in the world.
At the end of the meal, we were walking by the bar and we met Lookman, the owner, who was very nice (and chuffed when he heard my Nigerian connection). I saw a bottle of "African Viagra" on the wall and when I asked about it, he gave us a shot of it. Everyone was watching our faces because they were obviously expecting a reaction, but it actually wasn't that bad (but definitely strange). However, the aftertaste was super bitter and crept up on you and kept going. They should have been watching our faces when we were out on the sidewalk.
I'd go back on a warmer day, get more moi moi, and try the jollof rice, and the okra sauce (really, all of the sauces sound amazing), perhaps with tilapia. Thank you Buka for my Nigerian night out.
The goat, fufu, and pounded yam was delightful. I am a huge fan of the goat peppered soup, it was tender and a filled with meat and spicy broth and it never disappoints. The jolloff rice was spicy and authentic. Dodo was delivered to our table piping hot. The Buka Mojito was smaller than I expected but decorative, deep, and rich in flavor.
The room was dimly lit and I mean void of light and sparsely lit, I would highly recommend on nights that are heavy with clouds and overcast that the staff reevaluate the lightning. The Nigerian music was low, at a dull whisper. I would have loved to hear more.
Service is slow. There was one very attentive and courteous young lady who served as hostess and waitress between us and about four other parties, we had to hunt her down to our bill.
Good experience. Authentic and locally own and operated by native Nigerians. This is a date night must.
Let me just say this…….. I walked in here last Friday for the first time and it was BRICK outside – I mean one of the coldest days in 2013.
BUKA had NO HEAT! – It was freezing in there. The waitresses had coats on – the few customers that were inside had coats on.
Why would you you keep a place of business OPEN on a cold ass night – brick outside – with no HEAT! Are you kidding me……………
Therefore, need I finish this review……………. I am not because it is not even worth it!
On a cold WINTER NIGHT – no one should be subjective to having DINNER in a freezing place with its employees wearing coats – really – who does that!!!!!!!