It is only on Sundays that their services are unavailable and that is because for six of the seven days of the week, under rain or sun, they cater to the needs of a broad spectrum of customers who drop by to quickly fill up, on the go.
Welcome to Calabar’s plantain and corn ‘avenue’, located by the roadside, at the beginning of Ekorinim II. The place can be accessed either from the highway, as you enter Calabar, on your right just after the Calabar Sports Club, or from the more difficult to describe Spring Road axis of Ekorinim I. However, there is a famous landmark around this inauspicious place; the Cross River State Ministry of Works, that should make your location attempt a not too difficult one because except for the number of cars that are often parked by the roadside, you may just miss the place without knowing.
When you get there, a few things are obvious and add pep to the place. Trees planted on either side of the road provide a welcome canopy that shades people from the sun and a little rain. The chairs are mainly plastic and few for those interested in an ‘eat in’, otherwise you are served ‘take away’.
The plantain is roasted, “ripe or unripe”, like the sellers will tell you and comes with a sauce, rich in pepper, salt, onions and a few other spices. You also have the option of having ‘otasi’, that bitter leaf than turns sweet in the end, chopped in bits and added to your serving. There is also roasted fish, properly garnished to tickle your taste buds. Depending on your bargaining ability, between N600 to N1,000, should give you a serving you can’t finish alone unless you have become the new eating champion ‘in a d area’. Again, you can still get served a combination under this amount with an emphasis on a ‘without’ serving. Simply put, your plantain will come without the tasty compliment of roasted fish.
Corn, sold on the side, is a seasonal entreprise, but when the corn season is upon us, like it is now, you cannot fault the way it is displayed on this ‘avenue’ . The wire mesh atop the glowing charcoal serves a dual purpose because besides the fact that it leverages the corn cobs during roasting, it also is the display platform for the corn and pear. The price of the corn is negotiable and starts from N50. When the number of cobs you are buying are above five and the seller is benevolent, you can get a lower bargain since prices are not rigid.
A lot of those who patronise this ‘avenue’ will readily tell you that what is on offer here is a see for yourself thing.
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