Restaurant Review: BLD by Play

If BLD by Play, Lekki, were a man, you would stick a tyre over his head and burn him. If those actions were too reprehensible for your impossibly Christian sensibilities, you would still grudgingly recommend that he be put in front of a firing squad and shot, preferably to death. If you were less gung-ho about matters of justice and sought to know the reasons that drove the criminal  to sin, you would insist that he be permanently interred in an insane asylum. The BLD Lekki man is the sort of man that bathes in his shit and wonders why he stinks. He’s the sort of guy that shoots a man point blank in the head, and wonders why he’s dead.

I was driving down admiralty way in Lekki Phase 1 when I saw it first. It looked good but I wasn’t sure if its goodness was as a result of its architectural splendour, or its newness. I was most captivated by the open bar on the first floor because of a certain love I bear for open spaces. I continued driving down that road as the weeks passed always keeping a special eye out for the place. It was always empty.

I am wary of places that stay empty even at peak time. My father once said to me, “Afam, the quickest way to die of food poisoning and or terrible cuisine is to eat or drink in the restaurant that’s empty when it should be busy. If people avoid it, then there’s probably a good reason why.” I should have taken its profound emptiness as a sign but I didn’t. My curiosity got the better of me.

I showed up there at 9pm on a Wednesday night. I planned to enjoy the roofless bar, with a beer in hand but my plans were thwarted at the door because the bouncer insisted that there was a private party going on there. I was confused because private parties in bars - as I understand them - do not have guest lists of two. I briefly considered that the statement might be true, because if it were true, it would mean that BLD Lekki was a place that allowed private sex parties in full view of the public, and then the bouncer would have been saving me from harm to my soul. I am not such a degenerate as to participate in private sex parties of any kind especially those that are in clear view of both the main road and my mother’s office.

I thought about it a little bit more as I walked back to my car - Mufasa. I didn’t know whether or not I should be disappointed because of my dismissal from the place. I had an epiphany then. I realised that BLD Lekki is simply a very very bad place to do anything. Even though I did not taste their Chicken Wings or their prawn popcorn I knew that their rottenness could not only be limited to their service for gangrene always spreads.

If you would like to know about how their food actually tastes then read this review by Eat.Drink.Lagos