Review: Cafeteria (Victoria Island, Lagos)
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NOSA: There’s a really popular spot in New York called Cafeteria. I wonder if there’s any relation.
FOLLY: I’m 100% sure you know there is no relation. Why are you being shady?
NOSA: Actually, I know there’s no relation, but I do wonder if this is a mere coincidence or it was intentional.
Cafeteria is in the old Cafe Neo location, right across the the street from Viceroy. Sweet Kiwi has also been in this Akin Adesola spot. Maybe the space is cursed because that’s an awful lot of businesses to be in a particular location since the existence of this website.
FOLLY: Word on the street is that the gift shop owners didn’t want Cafe Neo in there again cause it brought too many people and there was never parking for their gift shop customers. For Sweet Kiwi, I think it was a bad business decision and that’s why they shut it down. There were never any customers in there.
NOSA: To start, we got the Chicken & Waffles and the Grilled Cheese sandwich. The chicken & waffles were the source of a great debate in our group chat much later mainly because the chicken was boneless. Certain factions in our group chat strongly oppose the use of boneless chicken in chicken & waffles.
FOLLY: Per the menu, they are Chicago Style Chicken & Waffles. I’ve been to Chicago once, didn’t have chicken and waffles. Tried to Google it, but that didn’t tell me anything I needed to know about what was distinct about Chicago style Chicken and Waffles, so I’m just going to assume it’s a nostalgic nod to the owner’s home town.
NOSA: Personally, I actually don’t mind. They were like cute little nuggets and surprisingly very convenient. Think about it as a function over form thing because you aren’t struggling with any chicken bone.
As an aside, eating chicken in public is the ghetto.
FOLLY: Na wa o.
NOSA: On Cafeteria’s actual take on chicken & waffles, well, it could be better.
FOLLY: The fried chicken itself needs the most work because it was not crispy at all. The waffle was on the sweet side which I liked, however, it was a little thin which made it not very filling.
NOSA: It’s not very often you find a Grilled Cheese sandwich on a Lagos restaurant’s menu so I ordered this with the quickness. PS: Toasties has a Grilled Cheese sandwich and it is excellent.
The fries on the side tasted like absolute butt, but they aren’t the main here so I can forgive. The sandwich, on the other hand, was much better. It wasn’t particularly hard to be better than the fries, but yeah, it was.
FOLLY: I actually didn’t mind the fries because they were crispy. From the taste and colour of the chips, I could definitely tell they were fried in old multi-use oil.
NOSA: I’m not expecting this to be a local favourite for obvious reasons (read: no “protein”), but I kinda liked it. If you’re craving a grilled cheese sandwich, you should definitely get it at Cafeteria. That said, they really should’ve gone with a different type of bread on it. Something with more structural integrity. Maybe a ciabatta or something. I don’t know, they just need to experiment with a couple because the current one didn’t really hit it for me.
FOLLY: They need to hit up XO Bakery or Eric Kayser for much, much better bread. Meanwhile, I don’t know who else needs to hear this but grilled cheese sandwiches also need salt and pepper
NOSA: One running thing during our lunch at Cafeteria was the “bless her heart” energy of the place. It’s very “Aww, you tried”.
I’ll explain: the food took forever and the service wasn’t the best. BUT, it wasn’t bad in the way where you’re upset at it (like the guy who was blasting the owner over delayed food), it was bad in the way where you see someone is giving their best effort but it’s just not good enough. It could be growing pains and something they get over with time. If it does persist in a couple of months, I’m afraid there might be no long term future for Cafeteria.
The owner/manager person needs to put on a hairnet in the kitchen btw.
FOLLY: Considering that everyone else in the kitchen was wearing a hairnet, I don’t understand why she didn’t stuff the inches into a hair net as well.
NOSA: We ordered the French Toast to finish things off and in the wait time, I could’ve raised a 3 year old from birth. That. Long.
FOLLY: It was in this period that a family that arrived while we were waiting for our main courses started vexing and asked for their bill to leave. Seriously, it took like 2 minutes after they wanted to leave for food to start miraculously appearing.
NOSA: All would’ve been forgiven if the French Toast was excellent enough to override the wait, but it wasn’t. Just very eggy.
FOLLY: It’s one of those things that looks way better than it tastes.
POSTSCRIPT
NOSA: I wouldn’t crave anything from here, but if someone invited me for brunch, I wouldn’t reject the invite either.
FOLLY: I think I will go back to try the bubble tea if I’m in and around VI.
VERDICT
DAMAGE
Fried Chicken & Waffles - N5000
Berry Bliss French Toast - N4200
Grilled Cheese Sandwich - N3100
PRICE RANGE
N3000 - N6000
PARKING
You can get about 5 cars in there. Maybe 7, if you count parking outside the gate.