Gambian cooking is hearty, flavourful, and centred on rice. Meals are traditionally served in a communal bowl, with everyone eating from the section in front of them using the right hand. In tourist areas you will find Western-style restaurants, but the real flavours are in the local eateries and street stalls.
Domoda is the national dish -- a rich, thick peanut stew made with meat or fish, served over rice. The groundnut sauce is deeply savoury and slightly sweet. You will find it everywhere, from roadside stalls to proper restaurants. It is the dish to try first.
Benachin (also called jollof rice) is the other staple: rice cooked in a tomato-based sauce with fish or meat and vegetables. Every cook has their own version, and arguments about the best benachin are a national pastime.
Superkanja is a rich okra and palm oil stew with fish or meat, dark and silky in texture. Chicken yassa, borrowed from neighbouring Senegal, is chicken marinated in lime juice, onions, and mustard, then grilled and braised -- tangy and satisfying.
For street food, look for afra -- grilled meat (beef or chicken) seasoned and served with raw onions and a spicy mustard sauce. It is everywhere in the evenings, cooked over charcoal at roadside stalls. Akara, deep-fried black-eyed pea fritters, makes a good breakfast, often stuffed into tapalapa, the dense local bread made from a mix of wheat, millet, and corn flours.
To drink, try attaya -- the Gambian tea ceremony. Sweet green tea is brewed in three rounds, each progressively weaker and sweeter. Accepting all three rounds is a social ritual. Baobab juice (bouye) and hibiscus juice (wonjo) are refreshing and ubiquitous. Julbrew is the local beer.
The coastal resort areas have plenty of restaurants serving grilled fish, international food, and decent coffee. The Senegambia strip in Kololi has the highest concentration. Fish is excellent and cheap throughout the country -- barracuda, ladyfish, and sole are all common.