Joloff Restaurant

I am Nigerian so I am very picky about W. African food, especially Jollof rice. Of course as we W. Africans love to joke about whose Jollof is better, I’m not going to say the restaurant serves better Jollof than my mother (ha!) but it’s pretty up there. Recommend getting it with blue fish and/​or the peanut sauce. Wish they would add more plantains, for the extra $ 3.00, it doesn’t feel like they give very much.
Have eaten at the restaurant + ordered and the quality is the same. The décor in the restaurant is really cute too and it can be a good place for a date. Staff are always friendly. Love this place!

I had the mafe with lamb, and it was good, although the peanut flavour wasn’t as strong as I like. I also wish they added some more veggies to the sauce (whenever I’ve had mafe before, there’s usually at least carrots). The restaurant itself is well-​decorated and has a nice atmosphere. My server was great too. I’d come here again if in the neighbourhood for sure!

3.5 stars.
The place is beyond cute, with fabulous art work and funky décor. I agree that the service is slow, but if you order some appetizers and bring your own liquor (yes, it’s a BYOB with a $ 6 corkage fee), time goes by quickly.
I was here with a group of friends and had a great time. They have a free comedy show on the first Friday’s of each month, which was a complete surprise.
Fried plantains and fried yucca: ok.
Tiebuu Jeun (Senegalese national dish with blue fish): big portion; ok dish.
The food is ok, but the show is the real star of the place.

Nice Senegalese food. I’ve never been to Senegal, so I can’t speak to how authentic it is, but I liked it a lot! Nice to branch out and try new dishes, and not just the usual rotation of food. Only ever ordered in, but had good experience!

Poor service.
Actually disgusting service even to repeat customers.
Does not matter whether or not their food is good. There is a lack of customer centricity in their service. Downright rude

When you order «Joloff Veggie» choosing the «white rice» option (the three options being «white rice» «brown rice» and «cous cous») what you get is white rice with some tomato sauce on top. This of course is not joloff rice. When you call them and ask them why they boiled some rice and threw some tomato sauce on top instead of making the joloff rice you ordered, they tell you that it’s because you ordered the «white rice“‘option. Incidentally, joloff is always made using white rice. Any African mother worth her ground nut soup recipe knows this. So what we have here, my fellow West Africans, is a travesty of cuisine justice. This is a sacrilege. Shame on you «Joloff.»
Joloff! It’s the name of your restaurant pete’s sake!

Oh my goodness… you must stop by this restaurant when you’re in the neighborhood. Food is delicious and service is excellent. You won’t be disappointed.

Long-​live Joloff! I’ve been going to this restaurant after they closed their larger Fulton St + St James Pl original location that was open since the mid-​late 1990s. They still prepare the same tasty dishes, at the low same price, in a similar intimate and mellow atmosphere. This is not a trendy bourgeoisie African spot with a noisy bar.
About half of the menu is vegetarian, and never has fish been so cheap. Drinks seem to be pre-​sweetened, and overly so, even the ginger tea; to be avoided. The Ice tea is bland, but the sorrel is good. The food is not terribly spicy (unfortunately), and some items can be a little bland. The curry reliably is rich and flavorful though.
The food does not necessarily come out quickly, so be sure to order appetizers. When the food does arrive, the young woman servers will need to be reminded to bring over the forks and knives. This style of service has been consistent for a couple of generations, but the place is so chill, there is nothing to be uptight about. That aside, the vibrant paintings and African wax fabric pattern tablecloths are the real eye-​catchers. Like the service, the music can be a little too random, but it is not a corporate soundtrack, thankfully.

It was my first time trying Joloff Restaurant and I ordered the Yassa Ganaar, Dibbi, and plantains. I was very disappointed. It took them 50 minutes to prepare the food for carry out, and I ordered it 20 minutes prior to arriving for pickup, and had to wait an addition 35 minutes. The food was very dry, lacked flavor, and I ordered it spicy and clearly it was not spicy. If you are going to name a place Joloff the Joloff rice should always be superb. As for the Dibbi, its a Senegalese specialty and unfortunately I would have been better off going to New Ivoire in East harlem.

I hate to say it, but I really didn’t like Joloff. After seeing all of the reviews I was BEYOND excited about experiencing Senegalese food for the first time.
I ordered the Chicken with Lemons and Onions, with Joloff rice (for an additional $ 3). Honestly the rice was the best part. The chicken was ok, it didn’t really have any flavor.
A friend ordered the Fish with vegetables and Joloff rice (the national dish of Senegal). She really didn’t like it. The vegetables entailed half of a carrot, a quarter of yucca, and 2 leaves of cabbage. 2 LEAVES! That’s not a vegetable side.
The service was extremely slow, even though everyone was nice.
I won’t be coming back though. Honestly it was a bit disappointing.

The food here is excellent if I could could go over 5 stars I would, my first time having senegal food prices are excellent and the food was well worth it, I had the blue fish with peanut sauce. I WILL DEFINITELY BE BACK.

Overpriced, greasy junk food with little effort in composition or preparation, delivered late and cold. Peanut butter sauce is basically oil and peanut butter, no seasoning of any kind. «Mafe Lapp» claims to contain okra, but no okra could be found — just oil, peanut butter, and bone-​in lamb that was largely bone. «Mafe legumes» is just potato and carrot. Nothing else. The couscous tasted strongly of fish, despite not being advertised as containing fish.
We were very hungry so we ate this crap and regretted it immediately after. Never again, to be avoided at all costs.

The 4 stars is all about the food. Excellent, excellent, excellent. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Call me an ignorant American if you must, but I’m now enlightened. I don’t cook so I eat out every meal and I will be ordering from here at least every two weeks. Then menu is pretty straight forward. If you’re unfamiliar with Senegalese food then I encourage you to try something at random. You won’t be disappointed. I suddenly find myself rooting hard for this place to do well, alas, it’s usually kind of empty. Bed stuy is sorely lacking in cuisine diversity and this place does a lot to address that.
And the prices are reasonable!

I have ordered delivery twice from this restaurant and both times I was very satisfied. I am definitely a big fan of the lemon ginger juice — very tasty and refreshing! The first time I ordered I got the mafe yapp, which is the lamb in peanut butter sauce, very delicious and the ingredients tasted very fresh. My second order was the tiebuu jeun with joloff rice, I have only ever had this dish in Senegal, but this was just as authentic. And the joloff rice was perfectly cooked. I was a little disappointed at the small size of the fish, but it was cooked so well that I didn’t mind too much. The fried plantains were not too soft and perfectly fried.
I look forward to visiting this restaurant to dine in sometime soon.

Hands down this is my favorite African restaurant in Brooklyn as this is the only place the jollof rice is well seasoned but does not burn off my lips and throat. i love the fish pastels, plantains and the sorrel drinks. i have tried many of the dishes and always go back to the national dish which is the jollof, chicken and veggies. I don’t even know if they sell dessert as i am always too full to order. Go here, the food is awesome and the neighborhood has tons of shops and bakeries for you to enjoy after you walk off that meal. The only thing is… everything is made at order so you will have a wait. It is typically packed on a Saturday night so go during the afternoon. You can also call before to get a head start and just choose to eat it there when you arrive. Either way remember that good food takes time and this place lives up to that!

You can really taste the love and pride in the food here. When people care about the food they make it truly shows. Even their delivery person is friendly and nice.
Though I’ve only eaten from their takeout menu (about a dozen times), I believe I’ve tried almost all of their chicken, fish, and lamb dishes, with peanut and tomato sauces. The sauces are divine. My personal favorites are the ones served in tomato and okra sauce. I have enjoyed pretty much everything here including some vegetarian entrees which they recently added. I also really enjoyed the sides of yucca, fried yucca, plantains, and cabbage with carrots.
If I ever get to go eat at the physical location I will update the review with an extra star if all goes well!

The restaurant was in the heart of an area of African and Islamic businesses. Joloff was decorated wonderfully with artwork representing Senegal. I ordered the Tiebou Jeun, the national dish of Senegal. It was a colorful plate with many terrific flavors. The rice had a great, unique flavor.
In my pursuit to try food from different countries, now I can say I have tried food from Senegal.

We hadn’t been here since we lived in Brooklyn in the late 90’s, first time at this new location. Wonderful décor, it was a perfect day & a great way to celebrate Mother’s Day! We are always in NY, but hardly ever make it to Brooklyn.
We ordered fried plantains– which were cooked perfectly, the fataya djeun & legumes (fish pastels were our favorite), very flavorful & the sauce was tasty.
We all ordered a mix of sorrel & ginger– which was bangin’. It’s a BYOB so we picked up a few bottles from Moore Brothers Wine. Gotta love a BYOB!
Tiebuu Jeun (snapper) was awesome, perfectly seasoned! If your feeling adventurous– ask for hot sauce or sauce pimente– the perfect accompaniment to any Senegalese food– but use sparingly! Mafe Jeun was off the hook. The creamy tomato peanut stew is to die for with cabbage, yucca, carrots and joloff rice! I’m hungry thinking about it. Yassa Jeun was very good too. We had the Mafe Yapp– lamb stew in peanut butter sauce with okra — which is pureed in the sauce! It was soooo good with brown rice.
We thoroughly enjoyed the food, service & ambience. We won’t wait so long to come back!

I had the Yassa Ganar and my brother had the Dibbi. I also got Fataya Djeun as an appetizer.
Bruh.
So good.
Let me break it down for you:
Fataya Djeun:
Think of like a broken up fish patty. Or, if you’re not familiar, think of pizza rolls. Now, take out the cheese and the pasta sauce and imagine the bread to be more fluffy and inside, there’s some cooked up delicious-​ass fish. That’s some good eating.
Yassa Ganar:
I thought I’d be getting some stripped up chicken pieces because I’m a lazy POS, but I loved that they served me an entire chicken half. Like, dude, hell yes. It was the best chicken I’ve had in a while (AND I LIVE NEXT TO POPEYES, BASICALLY). I don’t know what they seasoned and brined the chicken in, but it is delicious. And that Joloff rice, it’s good, but I’m not so sure it’s worth the extra price. My brother got couscous with his dish and it did not seem any different (except mine was orange in color).
Dibbi:
The waitress first told us that it would take an extra 10 – 15 minutes to make because they have to prepare it fresh. Yo, that is so awesome, but like, I was starving so I was a little annoyed with my brother. He ate that dish just like the carnivore he is. The meat was tender and juicy (he let me steal a piece). It came with 3 – 4 pieces of lamb, which I thought was pretty damn good for the price.
The only problem I had was just how long it took for someone to take our orders. We sat around for just around 15 –20 minutes with our glasses of water, and it took an additional 20 –25 min for our food to arrive (goddamn Dibbi). So if you’re in a hurry, this is not the place for you. If you have nothing to do on weekends (like my sorry ass), then come here, have a great time with friends and tip your server well.

Great food but don’t order too many things because they tend to forget items. The food is always made fresh and packed well. I like the bissap and the fish pastel.
The joloff rice is interesting, if you’ve never had it, it’s worth a try.
I rather go in to the restaurant and pick up food.
It is an intimate setting but I’ve never really encountered it on a busy day.
Again, very fresh food and very hearty so order to share.
*Maybe they give less rice now. Not for sharing lol