African Safari Restaurant

Excellent food. Everything was good. The chicken was fall off the bone tender and tasty. Can’t go wrong if you order the chicken steak or the bbq chicken. Soup was amazing and the rice was perfect.

After watching Virunga, a heart breaking documentary set in Congo, my boyfriend and subconsciously craved for some African food. We settled upon African Safari Restaurant for lunch. Inside, there were beautiful paintings of Africa on the walls. Before we ordered the waiter brought out two soups and a jug of mango juice. FYI If you don’t order the combo you will have to pay for the mango juice and soup according to our waiter. We ordered the pancake combo with camel meat ($ 20) and the isku karis with goat meat ($ 15). First off, the soup was really tasty, totally worth having to unintentionally pay for if you don’t order the combo. The meat dishes were phenomenonal. Imagine tender fall apart meats stewed with a mix of complementary spices. The pleasantly sweet yeast risen pancakes were reminiscent of Chinese baked breads. To boot, you can expect the waiter to come by and drop off some free bananas later, which I presume is for cooling your tongue!

Sorry peeps… I debated whether I should give this place a two or a three. It wasn’t completely horrible, but the truth is, I really didn’t like the décor, service or food.
It took me awhile to figure out what I disliked about the atmosphere. I realized that it looked like it had once been office space. Still, whatever… décor isn’t everything. Besides it was clean.
We ordered combos, which is actually a pretty good deal. For fourteen bucks, you get a jug of mango juice, a mouthwatering DELICIOUS soup – I could have had several bowls of just that – a salad and your choice of meat with vegetables and rice.
Service was polite and friendly, but I really can’t stand sitting in ALL my used dishes. Water was dropped off at our table without ice in a jug. So we had used soup bowls, jugs, and glasses taking up our table.
The atmosphere was uncomfortable. My bestie and I were the only women there. All staff was male, and all the other tables had men sitting alone. No biggie, but the TV was muted and there was no music. Which meant everyone could hear our conversation, no matter how quietly we tried to talk. It was like trying to have a happy chat at a funeral.
When our combos arrived, the first thing I noticed were the frozen corn, peas and carrots in my rice. Yuck. Is there anything worse than the frozen peas/​carrots combo? It turned me off immediately. Maybe that’s why I really didn’t like it. I’m not much of a rice fan, but I usually like it when it’s been fried and doctored up a bit. My muskalo meat was divine, but the rest of it was just unpalatable to me. Frozen veggies and green peppers the size of my pinky. Did I mention ‘yuck’?
I’m not sorry we went, It was worth it to check it out, but I won’t be back.

Man, I loooooooove finding new places to eat at. My co-​worker, who will be lovingly referred to as D-​Bone, and I decided to check out African Safari Restaurant on a Wednesday for a quick lunch. Okay, quick might be a loose term, not that I’m complaining. I’ve passed by African Safari several times as it is close to one of my favourite restaurants in town, Café Amore. This place is nestled right on the corner and blends it with the rest of its surroundings.
The staff are all very friendly and there were two working the tables (one taking orders, the order bringing out dishes). We were seated right away and before we even had time to order, we were given a small salad, soup and jug of mango juice. Now that’s service! All included with your meal too, can someone say deal?
We wanted to try and share a variety of items so we both decided to go with the combination platter, which allows you to choose one item from part A of their list (rice or pasta) and another item from part B (meat such as camel, goat, chicken, fish and beef). We wanted to try their camel but according to the waiter, they only have it on Friday and Saturdays. Must head back on one of those to try the elusive camel.
— Salad — the salad is your typical, generic romaine lettuce with some shredded carrots. More of a get your stomach ready for other lunch goodies.
— Vegetable soup — this soup was dynamite — everything you ever could want in a soup. If I could make soup like this, I’d be eating soup everyday. So flavourful, I could detect hints of curry and turmeric. There was a few vegetables and thin noodles (a la chicken noodle soup style) floating around. YUM.
— Mango juice — homemade mango juice and not just a glass, they give you a whole jug! We didn’t waste one drip which should give you an idea of how refreshing it was.
— Baris (rice) and goat (waslad) ($ 14.00) — the rice was different than anything I’ve ever had. I can’t pinpoint exactly what type of spice they used but it was delicious, light and fragrant. The goat was just as good — slight bit of spice to it, flavourful and super tender.
— Pasta caraysan and chicken BBQ ($ 14.00) — the pasta caraysan was supposed to have some spice to it compared to the other pasta dishes but I didn’t really get that. It’s very simple, cook at home style type of pasta dish. The chicken BBQ was tasty but we both thought it could have used a bit more char/​grill to it, to enhance the flavours.
Overall, great value and everything we had was tasty. Must try the camel meat next time. Seriously, that is all — go and give African Safari a try. It’s easy on the wallet plus they’re open all day (8:30am — 11pm daily) to satisfy your meat cravings.

Food is descent a bit expensive, compared to other African restaurants I have been to. I find the servers to be slow and not very customer service oriented.

This place is amazing. The food is delicious, authentic, and has large servings. For $ 15 you can get this delicious vegetable soup, muskalo (beef) or camel, a heaping plate of rice, and a pitcher of mango juice. There’s also «white people food» which is also pretty good. The thing I don’t like about this place is that the waiters sometimes just being stuff that you don’t want/haven’t ordered.
But really, this place is amazing, and needs more business. 8.5÷10

This is a good example of authentic ethnic food, so authentic it scares people off. They shouldn’t be scared; the food is simply delicious and not particularly challenging for a so-​called Western palate.
The typical customer is Somali so I’m not surprised that I stand out there… I am a little confused why there are almost no women hanging out there, but this is probably the result of usual patriarchal patterns — the men get to hang out at African Safari while the women stay at home. Oh well that doesn’t detract from the food and I don’t think a woman would have a problem getting service there.

This place deserves a lot more business. Don’t let the tacky decorations or sketchy location fool you.
The menu has tasty, affordable and authentic Somalian food. Daring dinners are encouraged to try the off-​menu camel meat special. Combos come with soup, salad, the traditional banana and your choice of rice, pasta or bread. The mango juice is so refreshing, and comes free with your meal.
Had the camel meat with Somali rice. It was delicious, the meat was tender and flavorful, the rice was delicately seasoned with cardamom and sultanas.