“The immigration officer asked me, ‘Where are you going to stay? Which hotel?’ I didn’t really know,” he recalls. “I think she was just like, ‘Oh, are you going to Chungking Mansions?’ But, for me, I didn’t think I could afford a mansion. When I arrived, I was like, ‘Oh what a mansion. It’s a very different type of mansion.’”

Don’t swallow the lies about Chungking Mansions – try the curry

He also keeps himself busy as the founder of the Africa Centre, a social enterprise based in Tsim Sha Tsui that promotes African culture and teaches drumming, dancing and cooking. The centre gives guided tours of Chungking Mansions to schools and corporations interested in learning more about the complex.

The menu includes dishes such as goat meat soup, yam with egg stew, and fish with banku, a kind of dumpling made from fermented corn dough and cassava dough.

The most popular dish is the jollof rice with beans, chicken and fried plantain (HK$70, or US$9). A large order of this might include two chicken legs, a generous spoonful of black-eyed peas in a sauce, a heaping mound of fried rice and fried plantains.

The rice dish, which dates back centuries, is made by cooking tomatoes with chilli, onion, red pepper and garlic and then adding rice with water. While it’s not too difficult to make, the claim to bragging rights for the best iteration can lead to arguments.

“It’s very quintessential in West Africa. People fight over jollof rice – get a Nigerian and a Ghanaian and just say ‘jollof’ and you start seeing them literally fist-fight over this, which came from the Wolof Empire [a West African state that ruled parts of Senegal from 1350 to 1549] in the past,” Mutanga says. “It’s more based in Senegal; Gambia, Nigeria, Ghana and some of the countries around, jollof is the main thing. They love it.”

Sher-E-Punjab is a small space and the menu covers an entire wall. The kitchen can cook up dozens of dishes, such as dosa, chicken garlic tikka, vegetable korma, aloo gobi and vegetable biryani.

Mutanga’s favourite meat is mutton. The mutton curry (HK$80) we ordered is accompanied by a chapatti (HK$10) and roti prata (HK$10), a plate of thinly sliced cucumbers, carrots and red onions, and coriander sauce (HK$20).

Many people have the idea that curry is all heat, he adds, but this version – which has whole black peppercorns floating in it – has an initial sweetness that is followed by a lingering spiciness. It isn’t fiery hot, but the chunks of mutton can be overcooked and tough to eat. Diners might prefer to stick to the flavoursome sauce, mopping it up with hand-torn bits of chapatti and roti prata – another type of flatbread.

Mutanga has a soft spot for Sher-E-Punjab from when he first arrived in Hong Kong with HK$200 in hand.

“I have very fond memories of prata,” he says. “You just order prata, usually about HK$10 and then sometimes the restaurant staff gave me some free sauce. Prata and sauce, and you’re good.”

Other items on the menu include beef koftas, meatballs with biryani, lamb chops with chips, chicken burger with chips and Turkish garden salad.

Behind the restaurant’s window, guests can see thick chunks of chicken on giant skewers, while a large cylindrical chunk of chicken meat (later carved in thin slices) sits on a vertical rotisserie for the doner kebab (HK$79).

The roasted chicken meat is thinly sliced and garnished with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, onions and coriander. Then it is tightly wrapped in pita bread, served warm and sliced in half. Mutanga likes to come here not just for the food, but for the staff at this restaurant as well.

“They are very friendly, they are always willing to show you their world when it comes to their cuisine. They take you inside and show you how they make their food, and that level of transparency is really something that stands out.”

Mutanga, however, doesn’t have time to succumb to a food coma with us – he’s had to rush back to the Africa Centre for a cooking class that he is organising, and scampers off down Nathan Road.