by John Vollertsen

OF ALL THE SENSES STIMULATED during a meal, the most important is taste. Sure, food should look yummy and smell delicious and feel good. But, boy oh boy, if those taste buds jump up and the flavors sing and zing – bingo – that is the artistry of a chef who knows what he’s doing.

That’s also the experience on offer at the year-old Jambo Cafe. Chef/owner Ahmed Obo, who grew up on the island of Lamu, off the coast of Kenya, certainly understands the power of seasoning; it’s in his African heritage. But his many years of cooking in American restaurants, including stints in New York City and locally at Atalaya and a 10-year residency at the Zia Diner, allow him to introduce those mysterious spices into a menu that dabbles in Moroccan, Caribbean, and Mediterranean. Call it world cuisine with a punch.

The hot summer night we dined on Obo’s edible wonders became a steamy one. A massive downpour and the resulting humidity allowed us to pretend we were dining on an exotic East African or Caribbean beach. The menu furthered the theme with touches of mango, coconut, plantains, pomegranates, ginger, curry, and saffron, all of which spiced up the evening’s offerings. It’s a fun menu for foodie friends to sample; sharing dishes is a must.

The crowd is an eclectic one. Young hipsters dine next to older, established Santa Feans, which surprised me. I would have thought that senior patrons would find the menu too fiery. But although Obo provides heat, your relatives from Boston can still enjoy it.

Set into an unassuming strip mall on Cerrillos Road, the cozy cafe has a relaxed, casual feel but gets bustling when it’s full, which is often. The turmeric-colored walls hold African paintings and photos of native peoples. The air is fragrant with heady spices. Half a dozen stools along a counter are perfect for single dining or for those who like to peek into the kitchen to see what tlle clever cooks are up to. The atmosphere is friendly and convivial. I noticed a few presumably single women giving the handsome and swarthy chef an extra hug on arriving (and leaving).

We start off with the island spice coconut peanut soup. It took first place at the arumal Santa Fe Food Depot Souper Bowl this year, and with good reason. It’s equal parts sweet, salty, spicy, and scrumptious.

A delicate parcel of phyllo stuffed with spinach, olives, feta, chickpeas, and roasted red peppers is given a pomegranate-molasses drizzle, which gives the Greekish dish a tasty atoll twist. The cinnamon-dusted fried plantains are absolutely addictive; order two servings if you have kids with you, as we did. The coconut shrimp has a nice crunch; the zippy lime-mango sauce is a tart complement to the sweet coconut.

The balance of fire and spice on the Jamaican chicken wings made them the favorite of the table. They’re so tender you can’t help but suck the bones free of all the meat- truly finger lickin’ good!

Main courses include rich African curries and Moroccan stews, as well as grilled kebabs, fish, and more jerk chicken. The goat stew is an acquired taste. Those who love its gaminess order it again and again – try it if you’re game! A sweet and savory lamb stew was fork tender, with the addition of chickpeas, raisins, and sweet potatoes elevating it from stew to stupendous.

Even the accompanying side dishes were unusual: coconut basmati rice, curried couscous, coconut lentils, saffron new potatoes. The a la carte sides offer a veritable carb-fest: sweet potato fries with a curry dip, cumin-scented fries, rice and beans, roti (African flat bread), and juju and ugali – two traditional native starch dishes that serve as perfect complements to the smorgasbord of curries.

Vegetarians have lots of options, including a well-seasoned hummus plate, a roasted vegetable salad, an East African lentil stew, a stuffed pita veggie sandwich (with organic feta), and of course all those lovely carbs.

Ice-cold beer from the short but interesting beverage list goes well with all these flavors (try the Jamaican Red Stripe with the jerk chicken), but my crisp Parducci sustainable white, a zesty blend of sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, and viognier varietals, was a refreshing palate cleanser. There are super-tasty house-made tropical fruit drinks, which the kids enjoyed, as well as a bracing hibiscus iced tea.

Desserts feature intensely flavored locally made ice creams and sorbets, as well as a knockout baklava, rummy rice pudding, and mango cobbler. The coconut lime sorbet and the dark chocolate gelato with a hint of cinnamon provided the perfect ending to a perfectly delicious edible trip to the islands of the Caribbean and across the pond to Africa

“Jambo Café is perhaps Santa Fe’s most talked about restaurant. So many folks had told me how much they love Chef Ahmed Obo’s that I had to go back and have to agree: It’s great Caribbean and African chow that is loaded with exotic spices and packed with flavor. The cinnamon-dusted plantains melt in your mouth and are a must-have.” – John Vollersten

Jambo Cafe is that tall, dark, handsome man no one has ever seen before who comes waltzing into some set-in-its-ways pool hall, looks the local billiards champ in the eye, laughs and proceeds to smoothly pocket every ball in quick succession. Except instead of a pool hall, it was The Food Depot’s January 2010 Souper Bowl competition and, instead of winning a game of pool, Jambo Cafe (led by Kenyan chef-owner Ahmed Obo) whipped up an island spice coconut chicken soup so mouthwateringly alchemistic that the newcomer waltzed away with the Best Soup award (which equals serious bragging rights in this food-obsessed town). Beyond heavenly soups, Jambo brings the flavors of Africa and the Caribbean to Santa Fe via criminally tender jerk chicken, ridiculously savory goat and lentil stew, and obscenely delicious spice-dusted fried plantains. One word to the wise on this hot spot: Get there early. By 5:30 pm, the line of hungry fans typically winds out the door. Our only suggestion to Obo, then, would be to get a space as big as his food is amazing, but we think that would probably be a double-decker gymnasium. (Charlotte Jusinski)

Best Ethnic Restaurant: Jambo Cafe

Educated eaters know that defining Caribbean cuisine is like nailing Jell-O to a tree, so defining Jambo Cafe’s food as that of anyone ethnicity is no easy task. Chef Ahmed Obo of Kenya (who, for the last decade, headed up the kitchen at Zia Diner) brings a concentration on the region’s African influence, but the tastes don’t end there. Curries, coconut sauces, jerk spices, stews and rice pilaf run rampant on the diverse savory menu, which makes fantastic use of spices like cinnamon and nutmeg that are more commonly found in sweet dishes. Much of Kenyan cuisine is also influenced by Indian food, so also look for flatbreads and samosas here, in addition to the myriad other flavors of the Caribbean and beyond (how’d that phillo dough get in there? Or the cucumber with mint sauce?). No one people can claim fried plantains, but we’re tempted to say that Obo has got them down pat. The worldwide influence Obo infuses into each of his dishes makes Jambo Cafe the perfect choice for Best Ethnic Restaurant because, if you pick any ethnicity, it’s probably represented here. (CJ)

For chef-owner Ahmed Obo, it’s a dream come true. Born and raised in Lamu, a small island off the coast of Kenya, his personal journey seems more like fiction than fact. As the oldest of 11 siblings, Obo was inevitably drawn in to the task of providing for the family. Since there are no cars on the island (which is roughly the size of Manhattan) he started out, as a young teenager, carrying his neighbors’ trash to the nearest dumpster for cash. He would also go down to the waterfront to meet the tourists, who arrived by boat and needed help carrying their luggage. “People came from all over,” he remembers. “Germany, Austria, the United States, Holland, England – that’s how I learned English:’

Since life on the island of Lamu revolves around fishing, Obo acquired a broken-down, abandoned fishing boat and spent the next three years fixing it up and making it seaworthy. That boat, which he painstakingly restored by the age of 17, completely changed his life.

He began by taking out tourists on fishing trips. And, in a culture where men do not cook, Obo decided to end his trips by cooking up some of the fish they had just caught. “I grew up with a mother who was a really good cook,” he says. “She would use spices from India, East Africa, Morocco, together with mangos and coconuts, and everything was, of course, made from scratch. Since I’d been helping her since I was a kid and really liked to cook, it seemed like the obvious thing to do.”

The tourists loved it and Obo even acquired a string of return visitors. He also made many friends and, as it turned out, met his future wife, Miranda, an American student visiting from New York. The two fell in love and, soon after their marriage, the young couple decided to head back to the United States. At the age of 22, Obo was suddenly transported into a completely different world.

“It was a culture shock, for sure,” he says with a grin, “and I couldn’t really understand American food. There are so many different cultures here; was it burgers? hot dogs? pizza? meatloaf? fast food? It took me a while to realize that American cooking is regional, not national. That’s one of the things that attracted me to the southwest. There really are culinary traditions here – and spices!”

What brought Obo to the southwest in the first place – 15 years ago now – was a Kenyan friend, who happened to be living in Santa Fe at the time and invited the young couple to come out for a visit. That visit turned into a two-year stay, during which time Obo worked at Alfalfa’s Market, before taking his first restaurant job at Atalaya, on Guadalupe Street (where Dominic’s is now). “That’s where I started to learn American ways of running a kitchen,” he says. He also cooked for the Pyramid Cafe and acquired enough culinary confidence to continue his new career in upstate New York, when Miranda received a job offer that was too good to pass up.

His favorite cooking, however, was done at home, preparing dinner parties for friends, who were delighted to discover the novel tastes of his native land. “You should open a restaurant!” was the enthusiastic response of his dinner guests. Although that was not a suggestion he took seriously at the time, the seed had, nevertheless, been sown.

But the blue skies and open spaces of New Mexico were not easily forgotten and it wasn’t long before the couple returned to Santa Fe, this time for good. Obo continued his culinary career without missing a beat, cooking first at the Anasazi restaurant before finding a permanent home at the Zia Diner, where he quickly became the executive chef.

He also did some catering on his own and, to satisfy his love of native cuisine, started cooking and selling African food at the flea market. “I was blown away by the response,” he says. “People really liked it and wanted to know if they could find this kind of food anywhere else. I started thinking about getting a van and becoming a street vendor, but really my dream was to open a restaurant.”

Believing that to be beyond his financial reach, Obo decided to settle for a compromise and start a catering company instead. An old friend and colleague from the Zia Diner, Gillian Labe, who had since left town, came back to Santa Fe to help him get the project off the ground. But their plans changed when Gillian heard about a space becoming available, which might be perfect for starting a restaurant. Suddenly, Obo’s dream was becoming a reality.

“I had to come up with a sample menu to show the landlord, before he agreed to let me lease the place,” he recalls. ”I’m happy to say he was very impressed – and he thought Santa Fe needed something different.”

The landlord’s confidence was more than justified. From the time it opened its doors in August 2009, Jambo (which means “hello” in Swahili) has had a line of customers eagerly waiting to sample the menu’s unusual and tasty offerings. Among the popular specialties are slowcooked goat stew in an island curry sauce; grilled marinated beefkabobs, served with pomegranate red onion sauce over saffron new potatoes; and a roasted vegetable salad with goat cheese and habanero-papaya vinaigrette. Many of the dishes are gluten-free and vegan friendly, and there’s also a kids’ menu. The restaurant is tiny, with just eight tables, and no bookings are possible, so the really hungry arrive early.

The quality of ingredients is of major importance to Obo, who regularly shops at the farmers’ market and buys organic meat from local producers whenever possible. “I grew up with real food that was abundant and cheap,” he says. “Now it’s not so easy to get and it’s expensive!”

Obo remains in close touch with his family in Africa and goes back every couple of years to visit. He has regularly sent money home, making it possible for his siblings to stay in school and get an education. One brother has already followed him to Santa Fe and another, just out of high school, may do the same. And Obo now has a family of his own, a son and daughter, ages 10 and 13, both born in Santa Fe. “My family is very proud of me and that means a lot,” he says. “My kids love coming to the restaurant and, to them, it’s home cooking!”

The menu is supplemented with weekly “specials,” which may become part of the regular menu if they attract a significant enough following. And dishes change to reflect foods currently in season. “I’m fortunate to be able to get the spices I need,” says Obo. “Ziggy’s market is really good about tracking down things I can’t find anywhere else.” Jambo has been so successful in its first year that Obo is already trying to figure out ways to add more seating. He seems to have little interest, however, in opening a bigger place. “I really like what I have here,” he says. “And I’d much rather have a small place that’s busy than a big place that’s half empty.”

Packed cafe serves up ‘delicious African” island fare

By ANNE HILLERMAN
For the Journal

Although it has only been open for about six months, Jambo Cafe has garnered lots of positive attention, including top awards at Santa Fe’s recent Souper Bowl benefit and a mention in a recent New York Times travel section. The result? Lots of customers. The first time I tried to eat here (7-ish on a Monday), I couldn’t get a table. When my friends and I came back a few weeks later (6:30 p.m. on a Tuesday) we found seats together at the counter. All the tables were packed. The waitress, between clearing tables, taking orders and delivering platters offood, told us lunch is even busier than dinner. So, what’s the buzz about?

Flavor, to put it simply, the combinations of spices, meat and veggies, of sweet and tangy, fiery and subtle. The menu’s African and Caribbean emphasis translates to curries, jerk seasoning, tamarind and plantains. The platters combine an entree with rice and often vegetables. Or you can try sandwiches and wraps, a salad, the daily soup and a few starters. You can sample two traditional African starches I’d never seen or heard of before: fufu, a thick paste typically made from cassava root or yams and ugali, a sort of African polenta. Ugali is the national dish of Kenya, homeland of Jambo’s chef and owner Ahmed Obo.

At our busy waitress’s recommendation, we started with two appetizers, garlicky hummus served with raw purple onions, olives and tiny slices of baby tomatoes on lettuce leaves with soft pita bread ($5.95). Very good. However, the coconut shrimp ($7.95) were even better, some of the best I’ve had anywhere. Each ofthe four large shrimp had been sliced and butterflied, battered and fried to the perfect crunch. They had a bright coconut flavor but were not sweet. Excellent. The daily soup ($3.95), turned out to be the same peanut chicken stew that had won the Souper Bow. I loved it from the first creamy bite to the last. Complex, rich and delicious.

Next to the coconut shrimp, my favorite dish among those my friends and I tried was the jerk chicken ($10.95). Presented in the center of a platter, the chicken was surrounded by a fragrant ring of basmati rice, coconut and tender red beans overlaid with fried plantain slices. It made my mouth water to look at it – and that was after curbing my appetite with the hummus, shrimp and soup! I can’t remember when I’ve had such tasty and unusual chicken. The jerk seasoning, which can sometimes be overpowering, is perfect here. I could eat this dish with its combination of flavors and textures for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The goat stew ($9.95) had an outstanding sauce rich in complexity, seasoned with both heat and sweet. In  addition to an abundance of  meat, the stew included pota toes and carrots and came  with dry-cooked basmati  rice, which I added to the broth. The meat in the stew  may be an acquired taste  – the goat was tender but  didn’t have much flavor. We  also tried a side of freshly  made warm, soft roti, a cross  between tortilla and Indian naan, perfect for dipping in the savory broth.

The addition of fresh sauteed spinach makes the chicken curry ($9.95) different here. It was full of meat with a mild flavor. My friend who ordered it had no complaints.  He also liked
the orange juice-based tropical fruit punch, Jainbo has applied for a beer and wine license. In the meantime, in addition to the expected choices, you can have hot or iced chai, hibiscus or tropical iced tea and even tamarind juice.

Jambo’s ambiance reminds me of big city cafes. The space is so crowded it would be impossible to squeeze in another chair. Food this good deserves more room, a quieter place with ample elbow room. The walls display batiks and other African cloth art.

Jambo Cafe owner and chef Ahmed Obo was executive chef at Santa Fe’s Zia Diner before branching out on his own. I’d wish him good luck, but don’t think he even needs it!

Chef Obo opened his Mrican-Caribbean cafe on August 10, and Santa Feans have embraced the place. The music and ambience reflect Obo’s intention to create a setting that feels African, “… but not too extreme; comfortable for everyone,” he says. “Someone said that it made them feel they were on vacation in a foreign place, but a comfortable place,” says Obo. “I liked that.” The sheer variety of customers in the cafe most days — Patagonia-garbed hikers and bikers, suited-up business persons, families with young children, college students and great-grandparents, shows that Jambo Cafe appeals to a truly diverse clientele.

“Jambo” means “hello” in Swahili. It’s a name that contains good memories for Obo. On Larnu, Kenya – his native island, along the Kenyan coast in East Africa – his favorite restaurant was called Jambo Cafe. Plus, Jambo is a word that a lot of Africans know, he says. It represents something very comfortable and friendly to them. Obo loves having customers who are not familiar inquire about the name and start a conversation with him or his wait staff.

Lamu is an extraordinary place that was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993. Chef Obo grew up in a Swahili culture that is a historic mixture of Sub-Sarahan Africans, Arabs, Persians and Indians. The cultural richness in present-day Swahili life shows in clothing, architecture and especially the cuisine, which is a mix of African, Indian and Middle Eastern cooking. Obo grew up eating traditional goat stew, fresh fish, coconuts and many African spices. The island has long been favored by European travelers and Obo’s first cooking adventures took place when, as “Captain Ahmed,” commander of a crew of three, he transported visitors by boat across the archipelagio or out to the ocean to fish or snorkel. As part of the tour, he had to prepare chai, rice, coconut, and whatever fish had been caught that day.

Obo dropped out of school at 16 to ply his boating-and-cooking trade to help support his family. He left Lamu amd came to the U.S. 14 years ago and was drawn to Santa Fe “for its beauty, and because it was pretty much small with friendly people, like where I grew up,” he says. Obo became a prep cook at the Atalaya Cafe, then worked at The Ore House, Alfalfa’s, and the just-opened Pyramid Cafe. Next stop – New York, at an upscale seafood restaurant. Every step along the way, he learned more about cooking in the American way, searing and sauteing in pans and using herbs as alternatives to the African methods of grilling over an open fire and using lots of spices. “I was usually just a line cook,” Obo says, “but they noticed that I was so young in the business and could do so much, and taught me a lot in the kitchen.” The New York restaurant wanted Obo as their sous chef, but he realized that his heart was really in Santa Fe. He followed his heart, and worked at the Inn of the Anasazi restaurant and then Zia Diner, where he was rapidly promoted to sous chef, then head chef. “I wasn’t ready for that move, but the managers really supported me, so I said I’ll try it out,” he remembers. “It was really hard.” The Zia owners had seen something special in Obo and he didn’t disappoint them. He was their head chef for 10 years. His earnings helped support his two children (Mirna, now 13, and Salimu, 9, who live in Santa Fe), as well his family back in Kenya, particularly his siblings who were still in school.

“I learned a lot, cooking American food and all the different cuisines, but I always thought that I have my cuisine that I grew up with that I could not fit  into the menu at the Diner,” Obo explains. “I cooked for friends and family who kept telling me ‘You’ve got to open your own restaurant’.” He prepared African and Caribbean food for music festivals and other events, and heard the same thing from happy customers who didn’t even know him. So began Obo’s dream of one .day owning a restaurant.

When a space appeared for rent last summer in College Plaza, the shopping center located at Cerrillos Road and St. Michael’s Drive, everything fell into place. Walking through the doors for the first time, Obo instantly felt a burst of exhilaration and thought, “My dream has come.” He asked the landlord to help give his dream a chance. “The landlord asked to see the menu. I faxed it to him and in 20 minutes he called with a big ‘YES,’” Obo explains. “He told me, ‘This is what Santa Fe wants. There is nothing like this here and everything sounds so great!’” Obo asked all of his friends and family to help him in making the restaurant happen, and they have been incredibly supportive from day one. Generous help from so many people, from his suppliers to friends and family to his staff, “who work hard and put in their best effort all the time to carry out my dreams for this place.” Obo believes he can make his business a go. He also expresses deep gratitude to the community for their support, for the word-of-mouth advertising that keeps his tables full and for giving this new restaurant a chance.

“My thought is this,” he says. “For many years I support my brother and sister. I also have the opportunity to do the Zia and learned to be a chef there. Allah will support me to go through this, too, to open a restaurant, because I want to help more than just my brother and sister; I’d love to help my whole island, the cousins, many others, with school, with their lives. I worked to help them, to bring them through school. Now, I’m meant to go further, to have the opportunity to help more.”

Obo serves up curries just like the ones his mom used to cook on the island, including a traditional goat stew. Other foods, such as his red snapper with jalapeno papaya sauce, are based on traditional food but modified by the chef. His pita sandwiches and wraps (jerk chicken, curried chicken salad, spice-rubbed lamb, and artichoke with roasted red pepper) reflect his innovation, and his spiced roasted leg of lamb is a point of pride. “The African spices [are] where I go in the making of African and Caribbean food,” he says. “In Africa we use a lot of spices so it just feels good to use the familiar. The yellow curry served with your spice-dusted fried plantains is an African curry, very different from an Indian curry.” Another familiar ingredient is coconut, because 90 percent of the island where he grew up consists of coconut and mango groves. The East African Coconut Lentils Stew (with a side of roti) benefits nicely from this piece of good fortune, as does the coconut basmati rice served with most of his specialty platters. Salmon, roasted vegetable salad, a simple kids’ menu and several locally homemade mouth-watering desserts round out the something-for-everyone menu.

Obo’s goal is to get everything from as nearby and as organic as possible, because it shows in the taste. The goat stew – delicious and hearty without being heavy – contains grass-fed goat imported from New Zealand, but only because the quantity he orders overwhelmed his local source. The cafe serves lamb raised in Abiquiu, local free-range chicken, organic feta cheese from Tucumcari and local organic mixed greens. Obo hopes to add wine and beer to his menu by the new year, and will host events for the community, with live African music, starting soon.

So, when you need a unique experience with just the right spices to warm a cold November day, head over to this East African import. And don’t forget to say “Jambo” when Chef Obo stops by your table.