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    Ruth's Buka

    4.3 (345 reviews)
    ModerateAfrican
    Closed Closed

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    RUTH'S BUKA ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Casual
    Classy
    Moderate noise
    Good for kids

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    Recommended Reviews - Ruth's Buka

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    Andy T.

    Ambiance - 5/5 From the outside, the restaurant looks pretty small and simple, but the moment you walk inside it feels like you entered a completely different world. It almost felt like I traveled to Nigeria for a moment. The space was surprisingly large, very clean, and had a welcoming atmosphere. One of the coolest parts was that there was even a small market inside, which added to the cultural experience and made the place feel more authentic. Customer Service - 4/5 You order at the front counter, so there isn't much traditional table service. The interaction was pretty straightforward and neutral. Nothing that stood out, but everything went smoothly and the staff handled the order well. Food - 4/5 Dish Ordered: Fufu with Nigerian Soup - 4/5 My first time trying Nigerian cuisine, and honestly it was a very pleasant experience. The fufu had a soft, chewy, potato-starch-like consistency that paired really well with the soup. At first, the flavor was good, but the more I kept eating, the more addictive it became. The spice builds up with a strong heat, but it doesn't overpower the flavor. It's the type of spice where every bite makes you want to go back for another one. The soup itself was rich and flavorful. It came with around three pieces of beef, but the meat was on the dry and tougher side. I think it's because it was cooked and soaked in the soup for a long time. Would I Order Again: Yes. A unique and comforting dish that I would definitely eat again. The flavor and spice were memorable, but the tougher beef and higher price point hold it back a little. Additional Comment: Overall, a great first experience with Nigerian food. It introduced me to a completely different flavor profile, and I can see why people love fufu with soup. The dish is oddly addicting and gets better the longer you eat it. The only downside is that it is a little expensive at around $25, but it was worth trying for the experience.

    Neng A.

    For the longest time, I've wanted to try Nigerian food, especially fufu. We happened to be in the area and found this place, which is both a grocery store and a restaurant. The ambiance isn't very appealing, but I came for the food, not the decor. The gentleman who helped us was very kind. When I told him it was our first time trying Nigerian food, he took the time to explain the menu and make recommendations. We ordered the egusi soup with fufu, and it was absolutely delicious. The flavors were rich, comforting, and unlike anything I've had before. If you're curious about Nigerian food and don't mind a simple setting, I would definitely recommend giving this place a try.

    Egusi soup, pounded yam, & chicken
    Nicole K.

    This was so good! This is my second time ordering from them and I must say this is the BEST African food I have EVER tasted! The first time I ordered I got the jollof rice, chicken, vegetables,& plantain ( which usually I won't eat) I cleaned that plate too ! It shocked me that it was a little spicy but that's ok because the flavor was very much present! Even the pounded yam ( FUFU) was good! The first place I ordered I didn't want to eat the fufu ( it wasn't bad but it wasn't like this!) & their Egusi also didn't have as my much flavor! Even my bf liked the Egusi soup and chicken! He's super picky lol. Kinda mad I shared because this was so good! I do wish I got a little more Egusi but that might just be my greedy side talking lol

    Melissa M.

    The food was amazing, and the customer service was excellent. The whole family was incredibly kind and welcoming, which made my first visit such a great experience. I truly enjoyed my time here and will definitely be coming back!

    10/10
    He Mann Z.

    I love this place so much. If you've ever wanted to try Nigerian/West African cuisine, this is definitely the spot to hit up. Emmanuel is so kind and helpful, his positive energy is truly one of a kind. You can really tell that he and his staff are passionate about what they do and are incredibly hard working. The food is genuinely some of the most flavorful and authentic that the bay area has to offer. I had the Fufu and Egusi as well as the Ayamase (my favorite). I've also had the Jollof rice in the past. Each dish was seasoned and spiced perfectly. The Fufu was soft and perfectly cooked, it pairs well with the Egusi soup which is rich, slightly spicy and full of flavor. The Ayamase, a green pepper stew, was spicy in all the right ways with a bold peppery kick. I will be coming back every chance I get to try every thing on the menu.

    Dartise J.

    The food was amazing! This was my first time trying Nigerian food and the food did not disappoint. I'd give the food a 9/10 everything was full of flavor. Service was decent, it's more of a grab and go family restaurant. Which mean the atmosphere is basic as well. I will definitely go back for food.

    Egusi and fufu
    Nic T.

    We drove from Marin to try Nigerian food for the first time. As soon as we walked in we had a warm welcome by Emmanuel. He was so lovely. We had the egusi and fufu and jollof rice which were all delicious! It was such a nice experience over all. More people who own businesses could learn from this beautiful family. Please go and support and connect with them.

    Egusi Soup with chicken (comes with fufu), meat pie
    Vivian L.

    Made the drive all the way to Oakland because I've been dying to try fufu and egusi soup! After doing my research, we settled on coming to Ruth's Buka. It's a market that also has a deli, and we arrived a little after opening and barely missed the rush. The food was a bit pricey for the portion size, it was about $5 for the meat pie and $25 for the egusi soup. The flavors of the egusi soup were so cohesive and delicious though! This was my first time trying African food so I have nothing else to compare it to, but there was a lot of depth and nuttiness in the dish and the chicken was also super tender. I had to knock some points just because there is very limited seating and space as it is a very small corner store, and the meat pie had very little filling so I would probably not get it again. As the egusi soup was the focus, I recommend coming to try!

    Pam K.

    I finally got to come here to get takeout after thinking about it for literally years! It did not disappoint. The price point is on the high end but with that being said, there aren't too many options for this type of cuisine and I'm sure it takes quite some time to cook it and procure the ingredients, too. It is located on a street corner and after walking in, my daughter and I were warmly treated by Emmanuel. He was so lovely and helpful in recommending items. I definitely knew I wanted to try the egusi and fufu. The taste was right up my alley! I want to say the fufu was made from potatoes. The texture was wonderful, and I know it's not traditionally chewed but I enjoyed the texture and chewing it. It was more bouncy than I expected - like a cross between mashed potatoes and mochi. I asked for ogbono but there was okra soup which Emmanuel said was similar. He suggested I have it with the fish. Now this dish for me was very reminiscent of something in my own culture due to the dried/smoked fish and dried/smoked beef. For us, we typically keep those in separate dishes and also load them with chilies so I'm not sure if the flavor was for me since it was a mix of the two, however, I did enjoy eating the pieces of fish. I also wanted to try the cow skin because that's just something I really love, and I very much enjoyed the spicy and savory flavor of the sauce. It was perfectly tender as well. Emmanuel also suggested I try the akara which is a type of bean fritter, and I thought it was delicious. I just wish it was still crispy. He said it's not normally on the menu but that they made some this weekend. The vibe I felt inside was very comfortable and the dishes are served cafeteria style. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

    Lovely wall art
    Llana L.

    My best friend and I stopped by Ruth's Buka on April 11, 2026. It was a rainy day, and we were craving West African cuisine. The restaurant is tucked inside a small grocery market, with a tiny cafeteria-style dining area. We ordered egusi soup with fish, jollof rice, fufu, and plantains. The egusi soup was flavorful, hot, and smoky, with a texture and flavor reminiscent of bitter melon. The portions were generous, giving us plenty of leftovers for the next day. The staff were very kind and clearly passionate about what they serve. Definitely one of our new favorite spots.

    Jollof Rice and Plantain, Chicken Plate and Egusi Soup with fufu
    Cynthia P.

    Finally got to try some Fufu and Egusi! I've been wanting to try this for soooo long! This restaurant is on the corner of a street, so parking is street. Usually, you'd park around the residential area. Service was great! We went during one of the busier hours since it's near dinner time, but we received great service! We got Jollof Rice & Plantain, Chicken plate and egusi soup and fufu! You do get one complimentary fufu for each order of egusi. The seasoning for both food was amazing. My friends and I enjoyed it a lot. My favorite was the plantains. Delicious. The chicken was tender , the beef was not as tender and was harder to chew. But the flavoring was still good. Overall, I really enjoyed the food and service from this restaurant. I would definitely recommend for people to go. 10/10 would come again!

    Plantains ...give a large portion
    Angela G.

    Service - they were very, very nice. Staff seemed happy to have you frequenting the business. Ambiance - it is a café/buffet style restaurant combined with a store. Food - I ordered the egusi and my daughter order the okra soup. We both added been to our food. We also order plantain (they give you a large portion) and the puffs. Sadly they did not have regular fufu, so we were given the wheat one, which is a brown yellow in color. I was disappointed but im down to try something new, so we gave it a shot. Food is served cafeteria style. Not my favorite way to dine, as i always find the food is often lukewarm, but we walked in and decided to give it a shot, especially considering we were in the Bay Area from Fairfield. Our total bill was $66 and some change. I don't feel like the soup portions were indicative of the cost, being that the egusis itself, was $25.00. The okra soup was very very spicy We like spicy but this was beyond our palate. It was very rich and savory in appearance, but the spiciness made it difficult to pick up on whether it was flavored well or not. We were not able to eat it. Sadly, the egusi did not stand out. It was bland, lacking in seasoning and left me unsatisfied. It was also lukewarm, but I like my food piping hot so it may be fine in temperature for others. The beef that we added to our soups was extremely tough and got painfully stuck between my teeth until I was able to pry it out. It also had no flavor to it. Perhaps if they had marinated it and let it slow cook until it was tender... Wheat fufu had a texture that I couldn't get into. I would have preferred regular fufu, but they were out. Again the staff was extremely pleasant and for that, I give 4 stars. Three for the staff and 1 for the food. I met a gentleman there who said he loved just about everything they offered. We all have different palates. This just wasn't suitable for us. The puffs were good just cold, so when I get home I will toss them in the air fryer.

    Egusi Soup, fufu, plantain, jollof
    Olivia O.

    Delicious with friendly service. Everything tasted fresh, high quality, and just like I remember from childhood. So glad we made the trip.

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    4 months ago

    It was so good and the only reason I did not put 5 stars, is because I did not try all the food. Very delicious-

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    10 months ago

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    11 months ago

    Super flavorful food, the plantains are a must get! The service was really friendly and overall loved the restaurant, would come again!

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    10 months ago

    Food is super delicious with a variety of appetizers and main courses!! The option to get groceries is a great addition as well :)

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    1 year ago

    Amazing food excellent service always nice people. I really appreciate this business and did I say amazing food.

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    This is my favorite hidden gem. I dream about their jollof rice. Everything I've had here has been SO flavorful. This is a foodie's dream

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    9 months ago

    First time trying egusi soup and fufu and it was so yummy and comforting! Manuel was amazing, I can't wait to come back!

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    1 year ago

    Came here earlier today with a friend and the food was worth the drive, so much flavor oh my god! Service was incredible too, will be back

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    Page 3 of 9

    Ask the Community - Ruth's Buka

    Does it get busy? Do we need to make reservations?

    Yes, and yes

    Do they sell Fu Fu?

    Yes we do

    View All 4 Questions

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    Kendejah is a Liberian restaurant serving traditional West African dishes. As someone from West…read moreAfrica, I grew up eating this type of food and still cook and enjoy it at home, so I'm very familiar with the flavors and authenticity. The menu changes daily, which I appreciate because it reflects how we actually cook back home -- different dishes on different days. However, they also keep certain staple items available consistently, which is helpful if you're craving something specific. I did order Togo cassava, leaf, and jollof rice with a box of jar of pepper. I have visited this place over 10 times so the this review is long time coming. I understand that the restaurant may adjust recipes slightly to appeal to a broader demographic, not just Africans, and that can affect the depth of flavor and seasoning. With that being said, while the food is good and represents Liberian cuisine, it doesn't fully capture the richness I'm used to from traditional home cooking. Overall, I appreciate having a Liberian restaurant in the area and respect the effort to share the culture through food.

    I was feeling adventurous and stopped in here after dropping my brother off at OAK…read more There's one (true) vegetarian/vegan option- the Jallof rice combo. The other veg option contains fish powder. The girl working didn't seem too pleased I didn't know the menu. I felt a bit like an imposition.... She was kind enough to walk over to the kiosk to show me what my options were. I'm glad she did because I other sis would have ordered the only other veg option which unfortunately has fish powder. The setting inside was very causal and felt a bit like a hole in the wall. There was soccer playing on a big screen which made the space feel very cozy like you're hanging out in their living room. The food itself (I'm sorry!!) was meh.... And I'm the kind of vegan who is happy eating the beans & rice of pretty much any culture. The rice was... reminiscent of Uncle Ben's or school lunch rice, the saucey stuff was just really oily and didn't have much savory flavor, the fried plantains were standard. For $22, I don't feel like this was money well spent BUT to be fair, it became evident to me this is a place you want to visit for the meats. The restaurant had a fishy smell to it so probably order whatever fish dish. I bet that would be what they'd recommend to a regular guest. To the vegans/vegetarians out there, there is one dish you can have but I'd skip this place entirely if you aren't coming here with a group who are omnivorous.

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    Alloko Garden

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    (5 reviews)
    2.0 mi

    Alloko Garden is one of many restaurants cooking out of Jingletown Eats, a ghost kitchen and food…read moredelivery distribution center identifiable by the painted bird on the storefront. I had already planned to visit Jingletown Eats to pick up donuts from Mochill for Yelp Elite Week, so of course I had to take advantage of the opportunity to try a new restaurant, Alloko Garden, as well! I ordered the Shoukuya (whole grilled chicken) and Alloko (plaintain fries) for $30. Both were so delicious! The chicken was juicy and well-marinated, and came with a flavorful tomato and onion topping. The plaintain fries were fun to eat and paired perfectly with a spicy, salty dip, which the website describes as a prebiotic sauce. Having no other point of reference, it reminded me of Chinese fermented bean paste. The only issue was that I didn't receive the salad that the whole chicken set should include. Looking back at the different options, only the whole chicken comes with a salad, so I can see how this mistake could happen. After making my own veggie side, the Shoukuya and Alloko ended up being enough for four servings, which is a great deal. I would absolutely recommend Alloko Garden to anyone craving or wanting to try West African cuisine!

    Man! This was some yummy food and a blast from the past. As…read morea returned Peace Corps Volunteer who spent 2 years in Ivory Coast back in the 1990's, I was thrilled to see a local restauranteuer surface who could re relate some of the flavors that tickled my taste buds back in the day. Not to hate on its neighboring countries, but after travelling widely in West Africa I concluded that Ivory Coast has a truly rockin' and superior food culture. I'm vegan aspirational but my partner is not, so to increase his buy-in, we ordered Shokouya Cancanan chicken. The half chicken, accompanied by delicious grilled onions and tomatoes, was a generous portion of robustly seasoned, plump, fresh and perfectly cooked chicken. I love that they only use "happy chicken" as I call it--cage free, hormone free & antibiotic free--which assuaged some of my flesh eating hesitancy. The side dishes were just as I recalled: attieke, a marvelous cous-cous-like starch made of ground, fermented, then steamed cassava, was tangy, springy, and performed as expected in hand. (In hand?, you ask? Why yes, the "real" way to enjoy attieke is to scoop up a small handful with your right hand, scrunch it up in a ball, then dip it in a sauce or accompany it in this case with a bit of tender chicken.) It gives a taste and a mouth feel like no other. Then there was the alloko, which is a generous portion of chunks of fried plantain "doux," or sweet plantain. In Côte d'Ivoire you would likely enjoy these as streetfood, in my opinion best consumed after the heat of the day had spent itself and you were walking with your companion to take some fresh air before turning in. A street vendor would hand you a pile of these wrapped in a piece of newspaper, accompanied by a blob of paste composed improbably of fermented dried fish, ground chili pepper, oil and the omnipresent Cube Maggi. The marriage of sweet banana, spicy, umami, salty...made my toes curl just as I did 20 years ago! well, you can experience some of that magic with Alloko Garden's alloko. Each chef has their own recipe for the alloko side sauce and I suspect the proprietor, Monsieur Tohouri, uses less heat and less fish and more natural ingredients than the MSG-fest that is Cube Maggi, for us Oaklanders than he might have grown up with. But this healthy non-volcanic version more than gets the idea across and my partner, new to alloko and its accompaniments, understood that the idea was delicious. We both loved that instead of omnipresent plastic, this alloko (& attieke) came in a biodegradable paper box. Because he was temporarily out of one other dish that I'd hoped to sample, Mr. Tohouri kindly added a dish for me called fonio arancini, which are kind of hush puppy type doodads made of a grain I didn't remember encountering in my village, fonio. Even 20 minutes after picking up from the storefront in Jingletown, the fonio arancini arrived home still delicious in all the ways grain plus a dunk in a deep fryer can be: hot and crispy on the outside, warm and almost pudding-like on the inside, with a warm umami awesomeness from the cheese mixed with the dough, and a yummy dipping sauce alongside. According to the article I read in Berkeleyside, this fonio is part of an interest Monsieur Tohouri has in increasing the economic base in Côte d'Ivoire. First step is creating market demand. I say, bring it on!! Although we were ravenous after a four hour bike ride that day, both BF and I were satisfied after this feast. I know this is the first of many trips to this place. I feel so fortunate to have an authentic source of Ivoirien cuisine in my back yard, and with an emphasis on the health of the food chain, the planet, and the humans both producing and consuming the cuisine. I ordered and picked up directly from the storefront because I'd read somewhere that restaurants lose something like 40% of the price charged, to the delivery company (uber eats, grub hub etc). As the prices were very fair given the generous portions, this means a really tiny profit margin for the person doing all the work. What I didn't realize would be an added benefit was meeting the actual proprietor, the chef himself! Monsieur Tohouri came out to hand me my food, thus completing the awesomeness of the experience. How often in this disseminated and impersonal world do you get to thank the actual person who feeds you? My overall assessment: five thumbs up!! Merci bien Monsieur Tohouri!

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    Golden Safari

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    4.1
    (333 reviews)
    9.3 mi
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    I ate here with my sisters and I don't think what I paid for was not worth what I actually got. I…read morefeel like they could give more food. Also the service was not the best. The waitress was very kind but the waiter had a bad attitude.

    Golden Safari is the place to go for food! We finally had time to go and it was definitely worth…read morethe hour drive! This was our first time trying this cuisine and they did not disappoint. The staff were friendly and were very attentive. Jollof rice - very flavorful and soft. The portions they gave us in general was HUGE. Not sure if the vegetables medley were frozen or fresh but they did not have that watery feel to it. It had the nice crunch. Chicken - the chicken paired well with the rice. I love how it didn't feel greasy, it tasted very clean, and juicy. Just your standard chicken, nothing bad about it. Goat egusi- this was the star of the show. The viral fufu and egusi soup. The fufu itself had a slight bitter taste but it tasted like potatoes (it is yam). Love the texture, it reminds me of the starchy Vietnamese sandwiches with the sausage. The goat in the egusi soup was sooooo tender. As a person who does not like lamb, I can eat goat. I enjoyed the greens and the sauce of the soup. We also ate it with the rice and it was delicious. We would definitely go out our way to enjoy this again!

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    Ruth's Buka - african - Updated July 2026

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