Independence Day Eats at Jameson Connects
Over the weekend, we got invited to this year’s Lagos edition of Jameson Connects. This year, Jameson took the party to the New Afrika Shrine in Ikeja, which is about as on-brand as it gets for Jameson. Jameson has this whole campaign of not being pretentious so yeah this event is never coming to the island as the island-mainland divide in Nigeria is the dichotomy of pretentiousness.
Anyway, we got invited to check out the vendors this year: The AJs, Firewood Rice, Sizzling Fingaz and Lala’s Grill.
The AJs menu
Deep Fried Oreos
Not going to lie, The AJs were the only vendor we were really looking out for. They catered a friend’s birthday last year and we’ve been love ever since. The deep fried oreos catch your eye, but the real star of the show for us were the ribs from The AJs. Ridiculously tender and solid 10/10 on the Fall-Off-The-Bone scale.
AJs Ribs
Firewood Gizdod
We also tried gizdodo from Firewood Rice and asun from Lala’s Grill. The asun at Lala’s Grill had this interesting sweet kick to it. Almost like they use sweet n sour sauce or something. Firewood Rice’s fare wasn’t the most interesting, but it’s better to be boring than be bad. Speaking of boring, there was another vendor, Sizzling Fingaz, with Jameson infused puff puff on the menu which we naturally tried because why not? Not going to lie, we couldn’t distinguish the Jameson puff puff from regular puff puff but it’s the alté thought that counts.
Small chops tbh
Sweet asun
On the drinks, Jameson introduced a new cocktail this year - Jameson Ginger Melon to accompany the classic Jameson Sprite Lime and the Jameson Palm Wine Twist. Think watermelon + coconut + Jameson. It was very refreshing and almost tasted healthy so that why Folly had at least two (but who’s counting anyway) :)
If you’re anything like Folly, sometime in uni you may have tried making a horrible Vodka Watermelon bowl. This cocktail was MUCH better than a vodka watermelon, and is what I hoped that my vodka watermelon punch bowl would have tasted like. In reality, it tasted like fruit and rubbing alcohol.
Ps. if you haven’t had vodka watermelon, it is a terrible idea and all the blog posts I (Folly) read should have come with a “this tastes horrible so don’t try it at home” warning.