
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Nigerian Jollof rice is the best in the world. What is yet to be established is how many variations of jollof could possibly be made. As part of World Jollof Day on Sunday, Kitchen Butterfly and the guys at Eat Drink Lagos, with the help of about a dozen vendors, attempted to answer this question. It was a celebration of jollof in all it forms and they had organized for us an impressive variety of Jollof.
What makes jollof jollof? Is it the colouring? The amount of pepper? The method of preparation? Who knows? From the offerings at the festival, one could conclude that jollof is anything that appears to be red and/or is made with tomato and pepper sauce.


Guests could choose from relatively simple meals such as seafood jollof and ofada jollof to more interesting concoctions such as jollof samosa, jollof shawarma, groundnut jollof rice, jollof arancini and acha jollof.
Other options included jollof risotto, jollof cous cous, nkwobi jollof, jollof burrito, coconut jollof rice, smokey ofada infused jollof rice, jollof gnocchi, and jollof quiona chops which could be washed down with cocktails, zobo, smoothies, beer and of course water. There were gelatos and popsicles (some alcoholic) for when the weather got hot.
For the people who, for some reason, weren’t there for jollof anything, there were other options including dirty rice, chicken wings, pork chops, small chops, asun, cookies, BBQ wings, native rice, and salads.



In the midst of all the wining and dining, there was a DJ doing a great job of keeping guests entertained. Some guests broke into dancing (I wasn’t one of them). There were play areas featuring a large scrabble “board”, jenga, a pool table, Playstation games and more.
The event was well put together and the organisers made great use of the space available to them. Attendees could move around easily and there was space for hyperactive children to run around. Pricing was fair, with very few vendors selling anything above N2000.
It was the perfect event to enjoy delicious, well priced food with friends on a Sunday afternoon and you could almost forget that you paid a N1000 entry fee.
all photos are from Eat.Drink.Lagos
