Bissap Baobab Oakland

Great atmosphere and entertainment, but despite their web site the kitchen doesn’t stay open until 10, at least when I appeared one evening shortly before 9:30. And I could almost hear the music from the chicken joint across the street.

Went here with two friends who love this place. Got the free aloko, which was pretty good given that I don’t love plantains and also split some yuca fries which were amazing.
The service was awesome, and I had the hibiscus cocktail to start. For my main course, I had the Mafa which is comparable to Thai massaman curry but still has its own flare… chicken in peanut sauce. My friend had the Yasa with couscous, and it was amazing! If I go back, I would get that or the seafood coco.

Get a free Aloko (fried plantains with yogurt dipping sauce) when you check-​in! I went here with a group of girlfriends for a birthday on a saturday night. It’s not in the best neighborhood, but if you’re in a group, you’ll be fine walking around.
As soon as we walked in, it definitely felt like we stepping in to an authentic feel of Africa. The decorations, the staff, and the music.
First time having African food and it was definitely a positive experience. Their dish descriptions had a lot of curry which reminded me of thai food. I ordered the Mafe which is chicken with peanut sauce. It may not look appetizing in pictures, but it was soo damn good. The chicken was so tender that it was falling off the bone! The sauce was thick and tasted really well with the jasmine rice rather than the cous cous (IMO). The other girls loved their dishes. What we did not like are the plantains. They were hard and not sweet enough.
Anyway, overall it was a great experience and the staff were super friendly. They also give free dessert for a birthday celebrant! I would definitely come back here for more! They also turn into a dance lounge after hours. Kitchen closes at 9:30pm!

Supporting our own business with positivity, love, one accord. Let stay positive and let the people know how we feel. They are great listeners.
Try it for yourself. Live performance from Piwai brought us here. Thank you sister-​friend… You are awesome. Love and kisses.

A very cool place. Food with very interesting tastes and great cocktails.
Very well decorated with friendly staff and quick service.
The Coconut curry is especially good. Plantains and chips were unique.
I would give it five stars, but the music was a bit too loud for me although I was told is was only once a week.

The short: perfect introduction to Senegalese food.
May I order a to-​go?
Sure head to the counter.
…
Anything I can get you?
Give me another moment please.
…
Okay, I’m ready. I’ll get the chicken yassa.
That will be $ 12.
(The guy sees some people he knows come in and says hello. Um, what about finishing my card transaction? That’s cool this place has a friendly vibe…)
Okay, please sign here.
(Not even 10 seconds later, my order is ready).
Wow, thank you. That was so fast!
Have a good night!
Total time: less than 10 minutes!!! (could be 6 minutes if I remember correctly)
Back at work, salivating and loving every single bite of the chicken yassa. Who knew that a simple marinade of onions in a lemon, garlic, and mustard sauce could be so tasty? I loved the rice too :) Can’t wait to try the fried plantains on my next visit!

Pluses:
+ No hassle about separate checks.
+ Cool, colorful ambience.
+ Reservations — yes!
+ Wonderfully concocted mixed drinks.
+ Check-​in perk: fried platanos. =]
+ Awesome cooking.
+ Great happy hour prices!
What else can you ask for?
Happy hour is from 3pm to 6pm. $ 3 beer and $ 2 off cocktails.
Mafe with Chicken ($ 12) — Chicken with peanut sauce and couscous. Couscous was fluffy and well-​made! Chicken was extremely tender, that meat fell off effortlessly. Peanut sauce reminded us of Thai cooking a bit but with a different touch — delicious!

Original lunch place with a lot of colorful and African vibes. The food is delicious. We had the buffet which has a mix of different sauces (including yassa, the marinated onion sauce and curry sauce) and the chicken dibi (very tender chicken legs with the meat falling off the bone in marinated onion sauce). The salad is also a good medley of greens.
Though this is an African place, there is definitely the infusion of east bay/​Californian influence, as demonstrated by the juice section of the drinks menu. I had the kale Apple ginger one and it was pretty damn good.

Damn. I’m trying to lose weight, and come across this place.
Great food from recipes of Senegal. I had a chicken wrap with peanut sauce and sweet plantains as a side dish. Also some ginger juice. Lots of sugar but sure was delicious. They have music in evenings. Lots of room during lunch, no lines. Nice folks.

This place is fantastic. The food is wonderful and as good as it looks in the pictures. Make sure to get the plantains!
One thing to keep in mind is that there is live music on Fridays. If that is what you are there for, great! But it does make the palace very loud since people try to talk over them. If that is not your style, try to pick another time to go.

I love checking out new places in the East Bay, so when YO STEPH had her first meet and greet, we decided to roll through to Bissap Baobab.
We ordered a couple house cocktails and an African beer, forgot the name. To go with our drinks, we ordered the yucca fries and a pastille. We enjoyed everything, especially the rum drinks. The location is easy to go to and the location was open and very chill for a Happy hour drink.
We had fun at the event, mingling with people and will be back again soon.

Yay for free coconut rum, thanks to Unilocal!I wouldn’t have known this place existed until I read about this Unilocal event on my calendar! Yay for great Unilocal finds!
I came here with two of my girlfriends on a Sunday afternoon for their coconut rum. I am not too familiar with Oakland, but it was easy getting here. It’s going to be street parking in this area, but thankfully there’s no meter parking on Sunday’s! Plus, the meter I parked at was broken.
Right when we walked in, I already felt this giant vibe from the restaurant. It was very lounge-​y and offered a great atmosphere. I love their music and it made me want to dance! I don’t know if they moved the tables and chairs around, but they have this giant dance floor type of thing!
We went ahead and got our free rum from our Unilocal check-​in. We pretty much just sat and mingled with one another. It was quite relaxing! The staff were very friendly as well.
Overall, this is a nice place to hangout, grab some food and a drink, and chat your night away. I hope to be back soon! (P.S. They have quite a lot of free stuff for checking in).

Senegalese food this time is a first for me! I didn’t know what to expect as my experience for African food was limited to Ethiopian, but I thoroughly enjoyed my first Senegalese food experience. Surprisingly, no line for a Saturday night as some of the other reviews would have suggested.
FOOD: I got the seafood coco with tilapia and couscous. The dish was a curry, although «spicy» on the menu, it was very mild. The tilapia was seasoned very well and flakey. For a fish that has no flavor, they do a great job dressing it up and keeping it with a great sear, so the curry does not make it soggy by any means. The couscous was alright, nothing substantial, but a nice pasta on the side of the plate to accompany the fish.
SERVICE: Great! Attentive and not overbearing.
Also, they were doing a donation of 15% of sales to a local charity for women refugees. Talk about a GREAT restaurant that actually gives back to the company. I tipped more because of that fact along with good service and food.
A great and unassuming place in Oakland off of 15^th and Franklin, but a gem in downtown Oakland for sure!

No line at Bissap Baobab!!! Unimaginable! Too good to be true!
Considering how crazy the crowds get for the San Francisco location, we were truly surprised to see the Oakland location pretty empty around dinner time on a week day. They are right across the street from hipster Abura-​Ya, which is often pretty well trafficked, so still mind-​boggled, but hey! No wait for great food? We’ll take it.
Undiscovered so far, but some of the friendliest wait staff you’ll ever meet and great quality food. Good happy hour too – get the rums! Very tasty. They’d run out of the berry one but the coco one was good. Got the tilapia and a chicken dish and checked in for some plantains. Delicious! Come quick so they stick around! :)

What a hidden gem in the heart of downtown Oakland.
Home to unique dishes focusing on Sengalese cuisine, who knew that Bissap Baobab Oakland even existed and what kind of food they serve?
Special thanks to our former CM Nique F. for organizing this unique CMYE and for our new CM Stephanie Y. for hosting the Ultimate Unilocal Event for Eliters and non eliters alike to enjoy one’s company on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in June. Thanks to the time and date there was plenty of sunshine, parking and food and drinks to go around.
Once you checked in on your Unilocal App, we were treated to a Coconut Rum infused cocktail, which tasted like a traditional Pina Colada, but hey who am I to judge? The menu was limited due to the fact that Bissap Baobab is normally closed on Sundays. But we were given the choice of Yucca Fries with a side of Guacamole, Fried Pastries with a choice of meat or vegetarian filling and fried plantains with a dipping sauce.
After sampling a few of the Yucca fries from a couple of Unilocal friends who had already gotten there, I realized that these aren’t the traditional Yucca fries from Peruvian or Brazilian cuisine that I am used to. The fries did not age well after mere minutes and I wouldn’t recommend ordering them. The fried plantains were okay nothing too remarkable. They tended to get soggy after a while and the sauce that accompanied them didn’t accentuate the taste at all.
The real gem here is the deep fried pastry that came with a meat filling. Even the server said that was the choice I should make, as she said it was better than the vegetarian option. The fried pastry, as they called it, tasted like a little deep fried empanada coated with a rich sauce and fried onions. They are best when fresh. Bissap Baobab is a unique spin on the traditional West African cuisine. It’s definitely freshly cooked to order and tasted flavorful. This place may not be for everyone, nothing like the traditional Ethiopian joints you see in North Oakland (oh injera bread I love you so!) but it is something certainly deserves a shot.

New discovery of an apparently new business new East Bay CM, new friends, new month tomorrow. .. yep, it’s a Unilocal event.
Stephanie Y just moved to the Land of Fruits and Nuts from Nu Joisey, and we came by Bissap Baobab to welcome her. She’s quite a bit louder than Nique, and lots of fun.
I was one of the first people there, and others trickled in over the next hour. And we went to the bar and got our rum mixes (not me, I drove), juices, and fried appetizers, made new friends and greeted long-​time friends. Unilocalers are a friendly bunch, and one doesn’t worry about being a wallflower. And I got my picture with Stephanie before Eugene did, heh heh.
The venue: small, trendy, intimate. Nice dance floor and sound system, although some of the tables may have been moved out of the way for the occasion. Clay pots, paintings, and a surfboard with Africa’s native sons Barry Soetoro and Nelson Mandela (blatant political jab). Several people mentioned that they’d want to come back here. I think Bissap Baobab just got some more regular customers.
I’d like to give a Ron hug to Tanya, Sam, Gracie, Hazel, Michael, John, Jason, Porsche, Stanley, and others whose names I’ve forgotten for yet another memorable Unilocal Event. Laters.

I was Chilling at the Slab Charging my Ankle Bracelet .
When I noticed it was time to roll to YO Stephanie’s first CMYE.
So I jumped into my Whip and rolled to Bissap Baobab Oakland .
I parked my Whip a Block away. No Parking Lot available.
I Street Hiked to Bissap and was Greeted By Our Lovely CM YO Stephanie .
Bissap Baobab is a Senegalese Restaurant. I have never been to one before so it was a new experience.
I liked the Décor of Bissap very Cool and Artistic
What was Cool also was the Unilocal Check In Offer of 1 Free Rum Infused Drink .
I got the Coconut Rum Drink and it was Very Tasty. I liked it so much I had 5 of them.
I ordered 2 Beef Pastelles For $ 5 and Fried Yucca Fries. I really liked the Beef Pastelles. The Yucca Fries where ok.
It was a Nice Mix of Unilocalers Elites and Non Elites.
Bissap has a Nice Dance Floor.
I would Definitely return to Bissap to Party.
I Cant wait to see what kind of Events Yo Stephanie has in store for Us.

If it weren’t for Nique’s CMYE (which was hosted by Stephanie Y. and Jon G. in her absence), we would never have known about this place! Thanks for introducing us to Bissap Baobab! That Infused Coconut Rum cocktail transported me to a beach in the Carribean pronto even though it wasn’t served with an umbrella. It was so good. I had to limit myself to one, so I could drive us home in case the hubby decided to have more than two drinks. I want to come back for that and the plantains.
I grew up in a tropical island, so I grew up eating fried plantains. Their fried plantains here are delicious and definitely a bargain at $ 3. They gave us a nice amount for that price. We also had the beef pastelles. Yum! Two pastelles for $ 5. It was very tasty with a little bit of that sauce on top. If you want to make it spicy, ask for hot sauce. Jason F commented that the hot sauce was indeed spicy!
I’d like to try their curries and other dishes next time we visit. I have not had Senegalese food before, and am glad to know that there is a Senegalese restaurant in Oakland!

The food is delicious! A bit on the pricy side, but I haven’t had anything I didn’t like.
The wraps are on the small side, so if you have a big appetite it not might fill you up. However, for lunch they have a buffet that has delicious braised chicken legs, rice, plantains, black bean cake, rice, and salad.
Friendly service.
Decent place to come if you’re looking for something different in the downtown area.

Pretty solid place, good flavors, fast and helpful service, must eat everything fresh though.
Chicken curry wrap — good portion, small side salad, chicken was cooked fine (saw some complaints about it being dry, guess it depends on the day or cook). Note there is a slight kick/​spicy level to it for those who are sensitive. I love that avocado automatically comes with.
Aloko– I love fried bananas, so I was excited about finding another place. It’s decent here, not amazing but pretty good. The tamarind sauce goes well with it. Sizable portion too, a bit much for one person, good for two. But hey, it’s bananas, they’re good for you!