#konbi

“Combination” (or Konbi)  often relates to the term “pair”, a.k.a: ships.

(Note: OLD commentary. Please keep in mind if you read.)

I love those crustless Japanese sandwiches, even straight out of the fridge of the nearest Japanese market. Actually, that’s where I usually get Japanese sandos.

Konbi is small and has a polished look that has a Japanese sensibility. They specialize in Japanese sandwiches, sides, pastries, and beverages. The menu is brief. Seating is limited to a small counter inside. If you’d like to dine inside, put your name on the sign in sheet (there’s probably going to be a line). Otherwise, go to the takeout window and place your order. You can get all the menu items from the takeout window. The packaging is very nice, very Japanese.

* Egg salad sandwich ($10): The sandwich is made with scallion, mayo, Dijon, hard boiled eggs and soft-boiled eggs on a thin white bread. It’s two slices of bread with a generous amount of creamy egg salad with soft-boiled egg quartered pieces that they cut into three sandwiches. It’s good and carefully made, though pretty simple. That’s not surprising for a Japanese sandwich. But I am surprised that they left the crust on the bread.

* Chocolate croissant ($6): The croissant was very dark on top – on the edge of being overbaked but I think it was intentional. Normally, a chocolate croissant has one strip of chocolate. This one had a lot more chocolate. No complaints here.

* Canele ($4): Tiny, crispier than usual (baked longer) but with a custardy interior…so good.

Come early because they’re known to run out of food. Cash is not accepted.

4 out of 5 stars

One very hot Friday in April, Ore and I had decided to work at an open office space(CcHub) in Sabo till sunset before heading to our various homes to avoid the Friday Traffic and Bus-Rush. We dashed out sometime past 7 after Ore had downloaded lengthy Youtube videos for passing over time during the weekend.

We had spent the day looking into our laptop screens, doing one thing or the other and had totally forgotten to eat so we decided to grab “Sardine” bread from the bakery down the road as they had tormented us with oven-fresh aroma earlier in the day. 

I decided to take Iyana-Ipaja route home, to keep Ore’s company, save cost and eat Sardine bread. On getting to the bus stop we met passengers that didn’t want to sit at the back waiting for indifferent passengers to fill up the spaces behind so that they’ll sit close to the door. The bus was not the conventional Danfo, it was an 18-seater “Konbi “ bus with a lot of head and leg room so we didn’t mind sitting at the back. “Iyanapaja 200, Iyanapaja 200, ejo e wole pelu change yin o. Kosi change o” yelled the driver. Commercial Bus Drivers for some odd reason, almost always never have change, so they tend to give warnings which have become really passive to commutters, as things normally get sorted out eventually.

Having gotten convenient enough in the Konbi bus, Ore and I started eating the Sardine bread. The bus got full faster than we expected so we couldn’t get any drink. The driver gave to the numerous Caesar’s at the bus stop what belonged to them and we were under way.

Hunger had the better part of us so we kept eating hoping to get drinks from any of the traffic-hawkers. Half way, there was no form of traffic or stand still and unfortunately it seemed the driver knew all the routes to take to avoid traffic.

Drivers avoid hiring Bus Conductors to save cost as they’ve got different tolls to pay one Union or the other. So the norm is to expect passengers to be cooperative enough to pay their fare “line-by-line” and the driver shouting out bus stops, hence averting any Bus Conductor Service required. 

Most times, passengers don’t have the exact bus fare. This results in a little confusion and at times shouting and exchange of words amongst passengers and the driver. It wasn’t any different here, around Anthony Bus Stop the driver shouted “Ejo eba mi dawo yin line-by-line” which meant that each seat-row in the bus should pay their fare collectively. 

Every row seemed to sort themselves out but the third row which was made up of an elderly Yoruba man that seemed to have taken up the row-captain role, a soft spoken middle-aged Yoruba man with a lapped teenager, a fat middle-aged Igbo lady and another middle-aged man probably from the South-South region. The Igbo lady and the South-South man had given both given 500NGN to the row-captain so they were both expecting 300NGN change. The row-captain, true to his post kept on reminding the driver about the change. The driver passed 300NGN to the row-captain and the Igbo lady being closer to the row-captain, quickly grabbed the 300NGN from him. 

The South-South man got furious and shouted at the lady. “You are wrong! Why should you collect the change, I gave him money first so I should be collecting the change first”. Everyone turned to look at him in awe. A youthful female passenger on my row said “Oga na Lagos you dey o. Open your eye”. The Igbo lady had ear plugs(which I later found out was blasting some hard core Igbo sister tunes) and seemed to pay no heed  to what the man was saying.

After a few minutes the driver passed the second 300NGN to the row-captain and he handed it to the South-South man. Ore and I started joking about how the woman should swap 300NGN with the South-South man. The young guy by Ore’s side expressed his surprise at the South-South man’s reaction and said it was feminine. This seemed to spur up the Igbo lady and she started teasing the South-South man about how he should have been patient and acted more like a man. The South-South man seemed to have fire in his eyes when he turned to look at the woman. “You reach to be wife. You were wrong and that’s all. I said it and there’s nothing you can do”, he yelled.“See as you dey shout like woman, na woman suppose dey talk like this. You just come dey shout. You sef no reach to be husband.” replied the woman.  The two of them rained more insults at each other and the youthful lady on my row seemed to be jeering the Igbo lady, praising how smart she was and how any smart Lagosian would have done the same thing.

After about five to ten minutes of insults later, calm was restored to the bus and everything returned to normal. The two “insulters” sat close to each other. I was glad there was no physical exchange between the two of them. 

Unfortunately, Ore and I didn’t see any traffic-hawker so we had to choke on the bread till we alighted.