Forget silverware: At this Kansas City restaurant, eat with your fingers, feel the joy

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You know you’ve had a really good meal when afterward, the only thing left to do is to loosen that belt a notch and, inconspicuously, unbutton the top button on your pants.

That’s exactly the position I was in after a recent lunchtime visit to Fannie’s West African Cuisine, at 4105 Troost Ave., one of my favorite Kansas City restaurants. There’s a lot of deliciousness crafted in the Fannie’s kitchen, but I go there for the joy of her rich peanut butter stew with goat meat. For $18.99, it’s cheap considering how satisfying it is.

Don’t forget the fufu, a starchy mild-flavored staple served with many West African meals. In fact, it’s the fufu — it looks like a ball of mashed potatoes but is made from ground cassava root — that sets the experience apart.

Forks, knives and spoons are on each table, but ignore them. This fabulous stew is best eaten with your fingers, using pulled and pressed pieces of fufu as the vessel for sopping up the spicy soup juices. Licking finger tips between bites is encouraged.

That’s the way it’s eaten in West Africa, and experiencing the meal as authentically as possible is exactly why five years ago Fannie Gibson, the owner, opened the restaurant. She said her idea was to transport every customer.

“I wanted to bring some of West Africa, the food, the music, the art, right to the heart of Kansas City,” Gibson said. That is indeed what you’ll find at Fannie’s — a fairly small restaurant, with cloth-covered tables.

Walk in and you’re greeted by Afro beats and the aroma of spices. Folks paying for takeout orders are usually gathered near the cashier at the front. But I like dining in because at Fannie’s, “it’s an experience.”

Fannie’s story

Gibson, a small, brown-skinned woman with a cascade of perfectly groomed dreadlocks framing her face, is 34. Her relative youth surprised me because her food could be described as Grandma-made meals — warm, hardy and hefty.

But it makes sense when you hear her story. She’s from Liberia and was raised primarily by her grandmother, who taught her how to cook. Gibson recalls watching her prepare meals, “using only fresh ingredients,” she said. By the time she was 10, Gibson was cooking on her own.

Gibson came to Kansas City, more than 18 years ago, by way of Ghana, and graduated from North Kansas City High School. She went on to nursing school but dropped out. “I wanted to pursue my dreams” — cooking.

A mother of three, Gibson started out cooking for family and friends and then started filling orders for people in her African community who’d heard of her skills and wanted her to cater their gatherings. Gibson said that’s when she knew: “Hey, people really like this. I think I have something here. I can do this.” She opened her restaurant in 2018.

When COVID-19 hit, she switched to carryout-only orders. “The customers kept coming,” she said. “They really supported me. That’s Kansas City. If you are working hard and doing the right thing, the right way, Kansas City supports you.”

Heat and spice

Cassava, peanut butter and palm butter (made from the palm tree nut) are signature West African ingredients.

One of the most popular items on Fannie’s menu is Egusi Soup, primarily a Nigeria soup thickened with ground melon seeds and full of leafy vegetables.

Also popular is jollof rice, a one-pot dish made with tomatoes, vegetables and “my special spices,” Gibson said, with a chef’s kiss. “It’s the spices that give it that special flavor.

Customers should expect to wait a bit for orders at Fannie’s. While, of course, some parts of the meals are prepared ahead, Gibson herself is cooking every dish. “The dishes take a lot of time to prepare,” she said. “I don’t take shortcuts.”

Gibson said she wants her customers to know that when they sit down, it’s like coming to her place for a home-cooked meal.

In the kitchen on this day, giant bubbling crocks of cassava leaf stew, peanut butter soup and jollof rice sat over jumping blue flames. Her kitchen help stirred with giant spoons as Gibson walked around them, sprinkling handfuls of secret spices in each pot. They moved in a well-choreographed routine in the tiny kitchen.

The peanut butter-based soup cooks slowly for more than an hour with onions, red bell peppers and a combination of secret spices.

A server brought me a steaming bowl of goat meat in peanut soup and fufu wrapped in plastic. I pulled off the plastic, pinched off enough hot, moist fufu to form a small ball, flattened it and dipped it into the creamy brown stew. Hot, buttery, spicy deliciousness.

Divine!

This story was originally published January 17, 2023 at 5:30 AM.

Mará Rose Williams

The Kansas City Star

816-234-4419

Mará Rose Williams is The Star’s Senior Opinion Columnist. She previously was assistant managing editor for race & equity issues, a member of the Star’s Editorial Board and an award-winning columnist. She has written on all things education for The Star since 1998, including issues of inequity in education, teen suicide, universal pre-K, college costs and racism on university campuses. She was a writer on The Star’s 2020 “Truth in Black and White” project and the recipient of the 2021 Eleanor McClatchy Award for exemplary leadership skills and transformative journalism.