Goldcoast Restaurant & Loungebar

Ghanaian institution near the Arena, serving jollof and waakye until deep night.

Goldcoast has held its corner near the Amsterdamse Poort since 2006, which in the fast-churning Bijlmer restaurant economy counts as tenure. It's a restaurant and lounge in the West African sense: dinner slides into drinks, drinks slide into music, and on Fridays and Saturdays the kitchen keeps going until 3am, because Zuidoost does not eat on Randstad office hours. The jollof is the benchmark, smoky, properly seasoned, none of your polite Dutch-spice-level nonsense, and the waakye, that rice-and-beans breakfast-of-champions, is the dish to order if you want the kitchen to take you seriously. Sweet potato with spare ribs bridges the Ghanaian-European menu split for the unconverted. Portions assume you've had a long day. Come with a group, stay too late, and understand why half the room seems to know each other. They probably do.

Order the waakye if it's on; otherwise jollof with grilled tilapia, and don't skip the shito.

Photo: Goldcoast Restaurant & Loungebar