Nasiib Somalian Restaurant

As mentioned in a few of my previous reviews, a group of my coworkers and I started an International Lunch Club. We try to hit restaurants that offer different ethnic cuisines each month and Nasiib was our 3^rd destination and definitely the most adventurous!
Nasiib serves Somalian food and is located at the southernmost tip of the Grand restaurant district. We visited here at the very end of 2014 and I think it has since closed for some renovations, but hopefully it opens back up soon and is new & improved.
If it was only up to the food, I would have awarded Nasiib 4 or 5 stars, but their service was pretty bad so I settled on 3 stars. Since we were a larger group of about 8 people, we called ahead and gave them a heads up that our group was coming in the next day for lunch. We even gathered our orders ahead of time, so we could give them an idea of what was going to need to be prepared for our lunch.
All of our valiant efforts to move our lunch along swiftly failed, and failed miserably at that. Our lunch ended up taking 2.5 hours… I’m pretty sure they had to run to the grocery store to get the ingredients Even though it took FOREVER to get our food, it ended up tasting pretty darn good. We tried a few samosa-​like appetizers that were served with this delicious bread called mushmush, which is adequately named since it has kind of a mushy texture with a hint of coconut sweetness to it. This might have been my favorite bite of the meal!
After the appetizers, we were given free glasses of a juice that tasted like mango flavored Tang due to our long wait. This was a nice gesture, but didn’t help the fact that we were all antsy and worried about taking too long of a lunch break. Finally, our entrees arrived and everyone chowed down on their food. Our group got a variety of curries (fish, goat, and chicken), a plate of ordinary spaghetti, some rice, and a kind of bread that reminded us of injera. The fish curry had nice flavor but had quite a few bones in it, the goat curry was also very boney and fatty making it hard to eat, leaving the chicken curry as our favorite dish. It was very flavorful and was the easiest to eat. If you go here and order a curry, I would recommend choosing rice as your side. The bread wasn’t bad, but the rice was the better choice because it soaked up the curry sauce better. My coworker who ordered the pasta was disappointed because it turned out to just be red sauce spaghetti. She was hoping for something a little more adventurous but o well, hopefully she will return and try a curry!
So, all in all Nasiib was definitely an adventure and gave our group the chance to try Somalian cuisine. If and when they open back up, I hope their service takes a few steps up, in which case I will update this review and adjust my stars accordingly.

One of the reasons I love South Grand so much is the variety of ethnic cuisine. It’s not very often that I run across Somali restaurants, so I knew that I’d have to check out Nasiib’s. For those of you who want the short read: Go if you’re an adventurous eater who doesn’t mind a «hole-​in-​the-​wall» type place. The food was very good in my experience, but the atmosphere was somewhat odd and might make an «outsider» feel a bit uncomfortable.
The character of this place gives you a true feeling of what it’s like to experience a typical restaurant in Africa. Generally speaking, African restaurants aren’t much on décor and service. People come to eat, and they choose from what’s available as opposed to what’s actually on the menu. Nasiib’s has that feel to it. The simple layout consists of tables and chairs in a room with a television that’s undoubtedly showing a soccer match. There are no decorations hanging on the walls. There are no pictures indicating what life is like back in Somalia. There is however a small window to the kitchen where you can go up and order food and check out the snack items displayed in a case. If you prefer to just sit at a table, someone will come out and bring a menu to you. During my visit, I saw 3 or 4 guys sitting at tables by themselves just hanging out, listening to music on their phones, but not ordering or eating food. I got the impression that this place is a convenient hangout for the Somali community considering that the Grand Masjid Islamic Community Center is just across the street.
At the kitchen window, we reviewed the menu with the shy young lady to see what was available today. I didn’t quite understand all the explanations, so we kept it simple and ordered some chicken, goat and of course the sambusa snacks to start off with. A sambusa is Somalia’s version of a samosa which is a popular Indian snack consisting of a deep fried triangular pastry stuffed with meat or veggies. Nasiib’s sambusas come with a choice of chicken, beef, fish or veggies, so we tried the beef and fish. Within a few minutes our sambusas came in a basket along with a squeeze-​bottle of sauce. The beef sambusa was delicious. The soft and flakey crust was nice and warm, and the beef filling was spicy and flavorful. I actually prefer these African style samosas over the Indian ones which tend to have a harder shell. The creamy cilantro sauce was an excellent topping for it. The other pastry came with fish, but I didn’t care as much for it. The strong fishy and salty taste brought back memories of this popular method of drying fish in Africa. It’s more of an acquired taste, but worth a try.
Our main dishes came out steaming hot. I preferred the chicken dish over the goat meat, but both were good. The chicken was cooked in a flavorful sauce with onions, green peppers and a combination of exotic spices. I think the dish was called Sukhar chicken, but I could be wrong. It was served with Indian style bread called chapati which is used to scoop up the chicken and sauce. The key factor with chapati is that it should be made fresh and served immediately. Nasiib’s chapati didn’t disappoint! It was light and flakey, but a bit thicker than what I’m used to. Served fresh here, it was excellent! The goat meat was covered in a delicious curry sauce and was served over basmati rice. Like most goat dishes, the meat was chewy and full of bones and gristle. Beware of bone chips which are common in this type of dish. The Indian spices, which are so common on the Eastern side of Africa, really stood out in this dish.
Overall, I find it difficult to rate this restaurant. Should I compare it to other restaurants on Grand or African restaurants in general? The quality and taste of the food was good, but the atmosphere and cleanliness was lacking. For me, I think the adventure and uniqueness makes it worthy of 4 stars and the hope that they make a successful go of it.