(This venue is closed.) The doors are open to all, but the cuisine makes few concessions to non-African palates.
The TV set on the counter may be showing "Law & Order" during your midday meal, and the sometimes animated conversations among cabbies, businessmen, and other customers shift freely between politics and finance, in English, French, and West African languages. The food that hits the table, however, is resolutely Old World. The mucilaginous texture of okra stew ($9) may be off-putting to anyone who doesn't love that vegetable as much as I do (frankly, I prefer it firmer myself); the beef that bolstered it took on reddish and peanut-butter-colored tones as well as a more typical meaty brown. On the side, a plate of dryish rice and beans displayed a few charred touches from the cookpot.
On another visit, I dug in with gusto into egusi ($10), a thick squash-seed sauce (often described as pumpkin seed) that takes a smoky tang from dried shrimp; it went wonderfully with the thick chunks of tilapia buried underneath. I'd selected my side dish, boiled yams, because I'd seen another customer cut off slices and slather on sauce, but my egusi was overmatched by those stiff, dry, flavorless tubers. Their polar opposite: the "special Ghanaian treat" called kelewele (top photo; $7), ripe plantain seasoned with ginger, cloves, and chili, then fried. Start in on them as an appetizer, save a few for dessert.
Florence's Restaurant
2099 Frederick Douglass Blvd. (113-114th Sts.)
212-531-0387
