Ebe Ye Yie

Had a quick dinner here last night and must say I was surprised! the place doesn’t look like much but the food is pretty good!

Whenever I visit NY or Jersey, I made a point to come here. I don’t know what any of the dishes are called, but there’s this amazing rice covered with black eye peas and fish (I think it was fish) and a spicy paste that was so amazing… and the portions are large. I’ve been looking for something similar in LA and Vegas and have yet to find anything as good as this spot.

I had soup and pounded yam and enjoyed it immensely. I would have liked more spinach in the soup.
The service is good. The environment is cool and calm. I recommend this place to anyone who wants tasty and affordable West African food.

The wife picked up a plate to go from here and it was a mess. She said she tried to ask the worker what was recommended and was just given a to go container with a little of everything in it. The fish was recognizable due to the shape, but I couldn’t tell you what else was in the dish. The fish I assume was freshwater as it had a bit of a muddy taste to it. Tried a bit of everything else, but was not impressed. While I am sure by the other reviews this place must be authentic, it may be a good idea to go with someone familiar with the cuisine. You will get little or no help from the staff.

I had the rice with cow feet stew and fried chicken with a delightful sauce on top I went around 2 pm and my meal was only 8 $! and the size was for a very hungry adult size man

I wanted to like this place because I like African and Carribean food, but alas it was not to be. I came in and asked for a menu, but they had none and the dishes out front weren’t labeled so I went with the fish.
The fish was steamed and completely lacking flavor. The rice was empty carbs. The only good thing was a a spicy red sauce of which there was too little to dip the fish so that stayed bland and watery (it was steamed and has no spices.)

This restaurant is one of the best restaurant in the city.

Excellent food from Ghana. I never had it before so I have no comparison. But this shit is fire !
If like your mouth to burn from spice like me then you would like West African food. In Ghana fish is a very common food with jolof rice or fufu. Beef is considered a sign of wealth over there.
The stewed fish with black eyed pea rice and pepper sauce is the winning move.
The lady might seem rude and just stare at you … but remember in other countries alot of places arent always nice by smiling, and she barely knows english.
The exotic spices make the food very fragrant and deeply flavorful. This ones a keeper

When reviewing restaurants of cuisines that are beyond the ‘mainstream diet’ of residents of even our country’s most cosmopolitan of cities, it can be easy to let the establishment serve as a proxy for the culinary merit of the country as a whole. That’s problematic, because a restaurant serving the traditional, or even modern takes on a particular regions, shouldn’t be held to account for the entire agricultural and societal development that has evolved over hundreds or even thousands of years.
That’s why I’m happy to have trekked up to the South Bronx recently with ten friends to try not one but three different Ghanaian restaurants. This wasn’t my first time with the cuisine, I’d had it three times before, and certainly some of the elements that were present are available in other West African and Caribbean traditions. But for everyone else, this was their first exposure to the food of Ghana.
We met at Ebe Ye Yie, the smallest of the Bronx Ghanaian restaurants. The curtains are drawn from the outside with only a small neon sign showing the entrance to the small dining room. Our party took up nearly three-​quarters of the available table space. I had the group gather at a nearby pharmacy to make sure that we didn’t idle inside while waiting to assemble. (Whether they are coming from Manhattan, Queens or Brooklyn, everyone underestimates how much time it will take to get to the South Bronx.)
The owner/​woman behind the counter was incredibly friendly and worked with us when I explained that we wanted to try a few dishes. She helped me selected a couple of dishes and was OK that we weren’t ordering an entire feast — there were still two stops on the tour.
At Ebe Ye Yie we focused on Ghanian classics — two heaping bowls of peanut stew, a couple of piles of fufu and some okra. I ordered the okra as a vegetarian dish, but was dismayed when the first person used a laddle to fish out a large bone. The meat eaters in the group loved this dish, the thick broth complimented the complex spice of the dish.
Peanut soup and fufu was challenging for the uninitiated — it’s a messy way to eat, even when some people resorted to utensils. Ebe Ye Yie’s rendition was solid, not as spicy as I’d had elsewhere, but cooked through so pieces of meat were nice and tender. We also had chunks of suya, a form of roasted meat that is pretty tough with a strong odor. It’s challenging fare — this isn’t another take on a kebab — and I’m not sure the cooking process at Ebe Ye Yie really helped it come out.
The vegetarians here did have to suffer. After the okra fiasco I requested a dish with no meat. The promised salad was a portion or iceberg lettuce and tomato slices, topped with a portion of canned baked beans. The vegetarians had a couple spoonfuls of rice, an African soda and a promise of more options at the next place.
The draw of this place, with its smaller seating area and more limited menu, is the wonderful generosity of the owner. She thanked us profusely for coming, and was a warm and attentive both inside of the kitchen and out in the dining room. We had the restaurant to ourselves during the visit, but I was happy to see a stream of takeout customers, making sure this will be around for a repeat visit.

When I walked in, the server was situated behind what seemed to be armor-​plated glass!
But the food was OUTSTANDING! I had the rice + spinach + dry beef. The spinach was so delicious that I asked for another helping, which they provided at nominal cost.
Area seems a bit rough; however, the food is EXCELLENT.

I have to say that this is the best West African food I have tasted. I have had Ghanaian food, Nigerian food and Senegalese food. This Ghanaian spot is the best. I am from Brooklyn but I was in the Bronx taking care of some business and decided to try this place out. Being of Caribbean heritage, I know good cow foot when I see it. I ordered the cow foot and the chicken stew with foo foo on the side and it came with okra. I took it home and devoured it. The Lady was friendly, the restaurant is nice and clean and the food was delicious. When I come back on that side of town, I will definitely stop in there. This time, I hope the have peanut stew. If not, I will take the cow foot and chicken. It was delicious!

The food touches the heart. It is hot and ready to serve. All the food is in a hot window buffet style and most of the food seems to be stewed, aside from the whole fish. Food like this makes you think of flavor and a lot of loving put into it. I had no idea what was on the other side, but the lady serving me put me on to all the choices. I opted to go with the stewed chicken and stewed beef. It was served with white rice, a stewed spinach, some kind of peanut based sauce and a sweet root vegetable. It had the consistency of cassava, but it was sweet. The food was mildly spicy and delicious! Loved it. Going back or the lamb stew.

Delicious. The Gari was delicious. Sort of a slightly sour couscous.

Good West African food. They should get someone to work there who can speak some English just to name the animals in the meals, or get some pictures so they can communicate. The suya was different than i’d had elsewhere, with a like a loose peanut powder on it and not too spicy but it came with lovely pepper sauce which was nice. they didn’t have moi moi when i was there. they had some goat or beef and that was tasty especially with the addition of the peppers. i like the food hotter. I had a ginger beer which was a nice complement to the food. wash your hands in the dining room it is good form to wash your hands before everyone even if you are going to use silverware instead of fingers. I would totally eat here again.

If you’ve noticed some of my most recent reviews, this is just the latest in a string of 5-​star ratings, yeah again in New York City. At this point, you are either thinking that I’ve been living in a desolate rock my whole life and just discovering the world, that my NYC birthright, by default, means that everything in NYC is 5-​stars as the «greatest city in the world”* or that we were just on a roll. Not going to lie, we were batting 1.000 all weekend– and none of us took any steroids either!
I’ve never had Ghananian food, and I’m guessing that most of you probably haven’t either. We were with a mutual friend, who actually studied in Ghana for a semester abroad, who informed me that there’s a community in the Bronx and also in DC as far as pockets of people from Ghana go, which is true. Apart from being in West Africa, the rest that I knew about it came from their amazing World Cup run last year.
The best way to sum this up, is that those who are searching for the exotic, should definitely come here. They don’t have a printed menu, but you can simply point to the different things you can choose to eat. I had a mixture of yellow rice, chicken/​beef and cow foot, all food that we also eat in Trinidad, where my parents are from. However, I don’t regularly eat cow’s foot, so this was a rather exotic experience for myself as well. It was definitely interesting and though I can’t say I would have it regularly, it’s not as bad as you might imagine.
To lay it out like this: maybe if you’re on a casual, low-​key date, and you’re with a girl who would be interested and open to trying something exotic, this would be perfect. Otherwise, there’s plenty of McDonalds in the Bronx too, I guess. While this was the first time in about 8 years that I have been back in the Bronx, I’d say that it was a trip well worth it and I would say that this place made this weekend trip to New York City worthwhile… and it was only Saturday afternoon.

I love it here. If you are not sure what to get good luck because there is no menu to tell you what they have. Some things look like chicken but I guess everything kinda looks like chicken. Luckily there was a cab driver there to tell me what they were serving.
Well I had the yellow rice with chicken/​beef and cow foot (yummy!!) I should have just ordered the cow foot cuz it was that good.
The woman behind the window was very friendly and gave me some free things to try. I guess cuz she knew Ghanian food was new to me and she wanted me to appreciate their food and I sure did.
I wish they had a Ghanian place closer to me rather than the BX. If so I would be there more often.
FYI…the Cascade on the table is actually Cascade so don’t put it on your food unless you want a soapy mouth!!!

This place was slightly unprepared for the sight of two white girls who’ve never eaten Ghanian food before, but they were sweetly tolerant of our questions. When my friend and I walked in, the man behind the bullet proof glass immediately shook his head and said apologetically, ‘The rice and beans aren’t ready yet!’ as though we were not ready for anything else. When we insisted we wanted something spicy, he tried to talk us out of it for several minutes before giving in. I’m glad he did — it was amazing!
We had the peanut soup with some kind of meat in it (not fish, but it was loud with all the fans running and I’m not sure what I ended up pointing at), with a side of Foufou (mashed plantain paste). Cut up the Foufou and put it in the soup — it’s amazing! And, although it was spicy (the gentleman who took our order solicitously gave us a lot of water in case we keeled over from the pain) it was not intolerable in any way. Absolutely delicious. Quick, beautifully prepared, remarkably inexpensive, and perfectly satisfying for two starving strangers.
The only slightly negative thing I can say about this place is that there’s no air conditioning. However, we sat right next to a huge fan and it was cozy, relatively cool and definitely worth the walk. Easy to find, right near the train stop — very walkable from Fordham University. Ask what you’re about to eat — a very friendly, helpful place!

The ride from Mid-​town to the restaurant takes forever. It’s way up in the Bronx… past Yankee Stadium. Plus it’s a Saturday, so the trains are running on that weekend guaranteed-​to-​miss-​your-​stop-​and-​make-​you-​go-​backwards schedule. I get to the restaurant about 15 minutes late. Does it matter? Nope, it’s only me who shows up from Eat Club.
I explain to the server in the back, protected by bullet-​proof glass, that I don’t know anything about Ghanian food and want something with fish in it.
«Do you want rice and beans?» she asks. I nod.
I order a dish of fish with a mildly spicy sauce over rice and beans. I also buy a Vimto soda, something I’d never seen before. I pay my money and the owner/​cook says she’ll bring me my food.
I go to a table and find it set with– not salt and pepper shakers– but with a glass bottle of lime juice and a small squeeze bottle of Palmolive dish-​washing liquid. I expected to encounter some strange things in Ghanian cuisine, but somehow this last condiment seems wrong.
The food comes in a big bowl with a plastic fork and spoon. On it, I use the lime, but not the Palmolive. I open my VILMO and suck it down. It’s delicious, as is the rice, beans and fish. The only problem with the fish is the multitude of small bones. It takes some work to eat it. I have to pick out the bones with my hands.
Then this young guy with an A’s baseball hat comes in. He sits down with me and tells me his name is Jibril. His aunt owns the restaurant. We talk. I explain Eat Club and apologize that I’m the only person here. Jibril laughs and gets up to order his own food.
His food comes. There’s a big plate of what looks like mashed potatoes, but is actually FOO FOO, made from yams. There’s also a bowl of fish in some red soup. Jibril tears a piece of Foo Foo, and dips it and his hand into the mixture. Then, he eats the soup-​soaked foo foo. So that’s the system! The forks and spoons are for the gaijin, like in a Japanese restaurant.
Jibril tells me that the people at the next table are from Nigeria. Some others are from Ghana, but not his tribe. We talk about language, about soccer (I know less about soccer than about Ghana), and about his dream of opening a restaurant of his own. (Now, he works in a Bronx hospital.)
After the mail, I go back to the kitchen and take Aunt Hajia’s picture. I’m telling her how much I like her food when I hear a voice calling my name. I turn around, it’s AG2, «I thought you left,» he says. «It took me so long to get here. I’m really hungry.» We sit back down. I ask him what he wants. «I want something really African.» he says.
Jibril tried to talk him out of the super-​spicy native stuff. «I’m a native,» he says, «and my lips are burning.» But AG2 insists. So, Jibril orders it for him, explaining to his Aunt that the Japanese guy out there really does want it the authentic way. (If everybody in Ghana is like Jibril, I wanna move there!) I advise AG2 to get a Vimto.
When the food comes, Jibril explains how to eat it. Then, after a photo with us, he takes his leave. AG2 dig in and quickly downs his Vimto and orders another. I watched in amusement as he turns red. So does everybody else. I’m sure he’s the first Japanese person to ever enter the place. After we finish eating, we thank Aunt Hajia. She asks God to bless us. –Eat Club DOT org is a roving group of NYC gluttons