By Chinedu Nwaduru
Walking into the T&K Cafeteria on their first day, greeted me with mixed feelings as I beheld everything that stood in front of me.
This review is solely based on personal experience and a desire for palatal excitement. Feel free to comment on your experience
Surronding
The atmosphere is indeed welcoming, with bright lights and a well position notice at the entrance and the centre-top that just screams “come inside”. The arrangement of the chairs may just need a bit more space. I wonder why they chose to arrange the chairs in a way that requires one to squeeze through, all the way to the counter.
The flowery table cover obviously did not serve its purpose, as it seemed misplaced in the arrangement, giving a sort of undertone to the beauty of the place. Perhaps a “Pepsi or Coca-cola” table cover would give an extra colour to the place, but certainly not the transparent table cover (a negative mark for the table cover)
A score of 5/10 for the surrounding
Arrangement
There is a fair attempt at arrangement of serving items and utensils, however there still appears a sort of haphazard placement of coolers on the floor which may be attributed to on-going construction. Having to put up this much in such little space of time is actually commendable, but clearly, a lot more needs to be done in terms of “what stays where”.
A score of 6/10 for the arrangement
Staff
While I am not ignorant of the tactics of business strategies and adversting skills, the members of staff appear welcoming and polite, in their light blue checkered shirt beneath the checkered apron, with funny caps that appears like clumps of clouds (for the females) and the mitre of the Roman Catholic pope (for the male). Looking neat, with minimal stains to the aprons and hands, one can only hope they maintain this level of neatness and further improve.
A score of 6/10 for staff appearance
Service and Professionalism
A seeming air of professionalism reigned in the air today, in the interaction between the food servers and the customers. Again, we are well aware of the tactics and all, nonetheless, it seems good to have a bit of serious mindedness and attention to details; something that has clearly been lacking in the cafeteria for a while now. The choice of plates and trays were really okay to the eyes, and the cutleries equally looked in place for the setting (although the spoons appeared to have lost their way from the medieval days and landed on the plates. Why so big? Beautiful forks though! )
With well-placed masks and head caps, one can be safe from aberrant spews of saliva on the food from careless talks and mindless chatter. However, it would be nice to see them wear nylon gloves, especially for meals that require contact with the hands like unwrapping moi-moi, picking up eggs, spaghetti and so on.
A score of 5/10 for service and Professionalism
Quality
Hmmmm! There seemed to be a huge disparity between the morning meals and the ones that followed subsequently.
White Rice
Appearing like mashed pudding, the white rice seemed to have been pushed to the limit of its absorbing capacity that they had to come together to give each other support. White rice should stand in grain, not a colony forming unit. The white rice today was certainly a NO
A score of 2/10.
Stew
More like tomatoes mixed with water to form a paste. It lacked spices and was just bland to the taste bud. The stew is not supposed to sink into the rice, it is supposed to stay above the rice. They really need to work on the stew if they hope to sustain the customers.
A score of 2.5/10
Jollof rice and Fried rice
The morning batch seemed to have come from an era lacking spices and colour. The appearance alone was a No, as the eye first rejected it before the belly; complimented by a substandard taste. The spices appeared misplaced, as some seemed to have embraced more spices than the other. The fried rice appeared like curry rice sprinkled with few carrots and peas (didn’t see any carrot in mine though)
However the afternoon batch picked up the pace, along with the stew which gave a sort of compliment to one another, but again it lacked an appealing appearance to the eye, both fried and jollof.
A score of 3/10
Amala and Ewedu
One word, “beautiful”.
Nice texture, and the Ewedu complimented the amala. I think the stew later picked up pace in the afternoon, because certainly it wasn’t the same stew as was used in the morning.
A score of 7/10
Porridge Yam
Not bad. It could do with more palm oil and maggi though. The yam was properly cooked and there was enough porridge to blend with the yam, especially with the vegetable (Efo)
A score of 6/10
Plantain and Meat
Now I am aware that the size of meat will soon reduce in size, however, its nice to eat a big meat for once, and not “Maggi cubes”. The meat was tender and soft, and had lots of juices within, even the cowskin (Kpomo) had its own flavour.
As for the plantain- golden brown, not soaked in oil, good texture with the rice and porridge. A good attempt (I mean, if you cannot fry plantain, what then is left?)
A score of 8/10
Overall rating: 5.23/10
We hope to see more improvement as the days go by. Its a yay for now