Lagos Unfiltered
Say it as it is.
by Anita Enahoro
It all started off as a breakfast date for four but somewhere down the line, after long petrol queues and unplanned pit stops, Ashley and I ended up at Maison Fahrenheit for lunch. It was our first time there and we were quite thrilled to be visiting after all we’d heard about it.
When we walked into the lobby, we weren’t let down. We took the lift up to the fourth floor and as we walked out of the lift into the restaurant, we were amazed by how beautiful it was. Ashley had just come into the country and he immediately compared it to somewhere in Miami. In simple terms, we were washed!
We were the only guests when we walked in which made us appreciate the setting the more. We walked length and breadth of the roof top restaurant just appreciating the classiness and sophistication of it all.
We took our seat at a table and immediately a waiter came over with a menu, welcoming us to their fine establishment! We were really impressed thus far. The menu was a five-page menu with literally one page for food. That moment was almost like an anti-climax for us because we were hungry but the peacefulness and ambience and view and excitement and of course ‘the wash’ made us stay.
The menu was really confusing. There were only two main course dishes and the rest were finger food, canapés. And the two main course dishes were both burgers. I expected better. The pricing was weird too. The burger Ashley had was N3000 and the Asundodo was N4000.
Ashley had The Mexican burger and prawn mayo spring rolls. I had Asundodo hoping to order something else if it wasn’t filling.We waited quite a while before the food came; I found this odd because we were the only customers at the time. Finally a waiter came with our order and the sight of it almost filled us up before we dug in. We were impressed once again!
We moved from where we initially sat to a higher table so we could dig in more comfortably. When Ash picked up his burger, it crumbled. The mountain of beef and bread collapsed. The bun was too soft and the beef was too hard according to Ashley. He got irritated and almost lost appetite, so I helped him reconstruct his burger and removed the bottom layer but this didn’t help. The guacamole in the burger kept spilling out and it was just messy. He had a few bites then gave up.
Meanwhile, my asundodo didn’t meet expectations. On the menu it claimed to be super spicy but it wasn’t. My idea of asun is small pieces of goat meat, but the meat was cut medium size so it was like dodo and goat meat not asun, if that makes any sense. Regardless, I wasn’t disappointed. It tasted really good. It wasn’t too spicy and the dodo and peppers were soft and just good!
The waiters were sharp and helped us out as many times as we needed. One of them even made an appearance on Ashley’s Snapchat!
We had a few shots of Hennessey and tequila. I also had a delicious mocktail – Strawberry Sunshine. Altogether we spent about N22,000. Shisha is available but only in the evenings. There’s also free Wi-Fi!
Maison Fahrenheit is at No. 80 Adetokunbo Ademola Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. Opposite Eko hotel. I most definitely recommend this venue to any dude trying to impress a lady! I wouldn’t recommend you take your little kids there for obvious reasons. Everywhere is a smoking area. As it’s a rooftop it is outdoors so when the sun is scorching or when it’s raining, it might not be too pleasant.