We Love This Liberian Carryout Shop

NIMBA

3252 S. Morgan St., Bridgeport

Perfect order: Dry rice bowl with chicken tips and aloco ($24), Abidjan salad ($7)

Lydia London, the dynamo behind this Liberian carryout shop, wants her food to taste like “going to your rich auntie’s house,” as she puts it. If said auntie cooks with abundant spices and palm oil, has an eye for striking colors and compositions, and sends you home with parcels of food wrapped like gifts, then London has succeeded admirably. London, who immigrated to Chicago from Liberia with her parents when she was 2, invites you to choose from among the family recipes she follows to create her dishes.

If you’re unfamiliar with West African food, then you’ll be madly Googling as you assemble your meals on DoorDash (you’ll have to order online for pickup or delivery). I loved the Liberian dry rice, which is seasoned with smoked fish, turkey sausage, and a thrumming chord of chile and spice. I topped it with chicken tips (bone-in bird cooked hard) and aloco (cubes of spice-dusted fried plantain). The Liberian-style jollof rice was seasoned to the hilt, so the fresh Abidjan salad, with tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, and avocado in a creamy yogurt sauce, proved an ideal counterbalance. If you love well-cooked Southern greens, then also try the cassava leaf stew ($15). Smoky, spicy, and deep in flavor, it leaves a happy yellow trail of palm oil on anything it touches.