Guinean cooking is hearty, sauce-based, and built around rice. Nearly every meal revolves around a mound of white rice topped with a rich sauce -- peanut (arachide), palm oil, leaf, or tomato-based. You eat with your right hand, or with a spoon if you prefer.
Riz sauce arachide (rice with peanut sauce) is the closest thing to a national dish. The sauce is made from ground peanuts, tomatoes, onion, and chili, often with chunks of meat or fish. It is filling, cheap, and available everywhere from roadside stalls to family homes.
Poulet yassa, borrowed from Senegal but thoroughly adopted, is chicken marinated in lemon juice and mustard, then braised with a huge quantity of caramelized onions. When done well, it is outstanding.
Fouti is a classic Guinean preparation of okra boiled with hot peppers and eggplant, ground into a thick, slippery sauce and served over rice with fried onions. The texture takes some getting used to, but the flavor is excellent.
Fonio, an ancient grain grown in the Fouta Djallon, is lighter than rice and has a slightly nutty taste. It is served as couscous or porridge and is worth seeking out -- it is gaining international recognition as a superfood, but here it is simply traditional food.
Street food in Conakry includes fried plantains, grilled brochettes (meat skewers), and tapalapa bread -- a baguette-like loaf baked in wood-fired ovens. Tapalapa with a filling of beans, sardines, or spicy sauce makes a quick, cheap meal.
Outside Conakry, your eating options narrow considerably. In smaller towns you eat what is available, which is usually rice and sauce at a market stall or someone's home. Vegetarians will manage on rice, beans, and leaf sauces, but dedicated vegetarian restaurants do not exist.
Drinks include strong sweet tea (served in three rounds in the Malinke tradition), ginger juice (jus de gingembre), and bissap, a tart hibiscus drink. Local beer is available in cities, and palm wine in the forest region.