(This venue is closed.) Anything colored like a jungle frog I usually leave to itself.
As did its late sibling Mariam, Salimata serves food from the West African country of Guinea. There's a gentle swell of spice in lunchtime fare like feuille manioc (first photo below, $10), a cassava-leaf sauce rich with chewy and fatty lamb; I spooned it over rice and was more than satisfied with both volume and heat. If you insist on bringing the pepper into play, a wise method is to slice it crosswise, hold the stem while avoiding the cut edges, and daub your food.
Also shown: sauce gombo ($10), okra-based, bolstered by lamb and spiny segments from some unknown fish; the accompanying pepper, in this instance, was scarlet, and as fiery as the one above. The thieubu djeun (Cheh-boo Jen, $10, available after 2:00) is one of the best in the city, not only for its variety of vegetables and ample hunks of fish, but also for the toastier bits of rice evident in the second, rotated photo of this dish. (See also Treichville.) Degue (Deh-gway, $3), millet couscous in a sweetened yogurt-like base, is as pale and innocuous as these other dishes are colorful and pungent. If you have room for dessert, the contrast will be welcome.
Salimata
2132 Frederick Douglass Blvd. (115th-116th Sts.), Manhattan
212-280-6980
