When you eat good food, you must praise the cook or send compliments to the chef. Even if it’s a waakye seller or beans seller by the roadside; give them the thumbs up for a tasty well-prepared and memorable meal.
This is one habit I learnt to inculcate over time anytime I eat out. Good food is what got me going to this beans joint in Osu for the past one-and-half years. I was onboarded as a customer through a friend’s swearing that it was the best beans joint in Accra. Eish! That alone perked my curiosity to test if this was a lie or the absolute truth. After tasting it once I haven’t looked back again. I complimented the women behind the wooden barrier who served us diligently every time -Sedem & Mawuena. After that we became familiar with each other and I would greet them in my little learnt Ewe. " Norvi! 3foaa" "Eee," Mawuena would reply. There's something feel-goodish when you can relate to the waakye seller like you are the best of buddies.
Sadly, the beans joint doesn’t have a name so I call it Beans Joint. It is the busiest beans joint ever! Bankers, taxi-drivers, students and people from all walks of life come to this beans joint for their early morning breakfast or lunch. Yep, breakfast I said. Ghanaian food culture is fun like that. We can eat lunch for breakfast and have another lunch and then dinner.
Beans and plantain or Yoor y3 Gari as its called in Ga is a meal consisting of boiled beans mixed with palm-oil or spicy vegetable oil and a bit of gari accompanied with a side of fried plantain. I grew up with this meal being prepared only on Sundays for lunch.
The beans joint is a wooden well-maintained shack which snuggles under a tree, housing both sellers and buyers. You have the option of buying To-Go or Eating In. If you choose to eat in, then you can settle on one of the wooden benches and bend over a low table to finish your meal.
The shack can be located a junction away, behind the Ecobank branch in Osu. It’s a popular spot and anyone can direct you there from the bank.
What I love about this beans joint is the taste consistency. It’s always amazingly delicious and the flavor is also unwavering. Unlike a waakye joint, in my area which is never consistent on taste. Today its nice, tomorrow it’s something else. It's also a hygienic shack and food is served in a clean manner as well. Trust me I watch them very carefully.
In almost every suburb in Accra, there’s a beans seller and like waakye sellers they are always by the roadside. And also just like Waakye; beans cooked at home never tastes the same like roadside beans.
Here’s an inside look at how beans is sold atthe Beans Joint and at most beans joints in the city. The procedure is basically the same but the taste is always different from place to place. I recorded the ambient noise and conversation exchanges between buyer and seller so you get an appreciation of how streetfood is bought in Ghana.