Safari Grill

Lots of yummy food for a great price and they were super accommodating to my vegetarian friend.

This is a great spot for lunch! The food is cheap, and delicious.
I’m a big fan of their chicken wrap, with it’s well marinated chicken and yummy sauce.
Also, you can ask them to make you a vegetarian plate. They’ll put in all sorts of vegetable sides. Ask for the ful (fava beans) if they have it.

I am a fan of Somali food!
SO much better than Ethiopian, perfectly spiced, not too heavy. I tried the lamb, fish, and chicken and all were amazing. The stewed veggie dish was my personal favorite.
No frills, no menu, so silverware. but the taste makes up for it.

Halal, delicious and cheap. I recommend the chicken kebab plate with rice and milk tea. 5 stars!

Awesome hole in the wall find.
Great lamb and goat that I tried were both perfectly and slowly cooked to perfection. Only a few items on the «wall picture menu», dinner plates come with great salad and very flavorful rise, very large portions.
Great value and great food, not a place to bring a hot date but a place to get some great food. My only complaint is that the place (and bathroom) could use a good cleaning. I will definitely be back for that lamb and goat though.

Solid, no-​frills Somali joint. Big portions of juicy lamb and goat on a bed of perfectly spiced and cooked Basmati rice is the reason why I go back time and again. And the green hot sauce — bes bas — is absolutely the best hot sauce in the world. Get extra to go.
The place might be intimidating the first time you go in there if you’re not used to the animated and loud conversations often found in Somali restos. Having worked in Somali refugee camps, I am used to it and have come to appreciate it, though I prefer to get my food to go from Safari. The service at Safari is minimal but that’s part of its charm.
Delicious food, big servings, low prices are why you should check it out. Oh, the banana is to be eaten with the rice and meat, not as dessert. Don’t knock it til you try it! It’s tasty.

Been on a major hole-​in-​the-​wall hunt to take advantage of the ethic clusters in City Heights/​Rolando area. There’s about 6 – 7 things on the menu. Friend and I ordered the lamb dish ad the fish dish. We also ordered the watermelon drink.
Before anything else was served, they gave us bananas. I saved it for later. The watermelon drink was a little on the sweeter side, but was good. About 20 seconds before your entrée gets served, you get a salad. Haha. The lamb was seasoned really well and tasty but there wasn’t much meat on it. The fish was nice and crisp. The rice and the streamed greens you get on the side were really good and blended well with the entrees.
Cost for all of the above? $ 16. Can’t beat that. Would definitely recommend this place to people. Out of the three Somali places I’ve been to, this one is the only with one a menu (not really, but they have pictures up on the wall). It also got good recommendations from people in the Somali community.

Hell yeah, we’re having Halal grub tonight!
Safari Grill is a hole in the wall Somalian style diner where you wont find a drop of alcohol or a rind of pork. All the meal combos are listed out on signs behind the counter, with no prices marked. Most of them are $ 8 though, which is fairly cheap for the large quantity of food. The meal combos available (at time of review) are lamb and rice, chicken legs spaghetti, gyros plate, gyros sandwich, soup, chicken kabob, and fish and rice.
Walking through the door is like stepping foot into a whole different world where everyone else around you is Somalian. This place is a congregating ground for large groups of older Somalian men, who chat it up in their native tongue over coffee and drinks. After our hero ordered at the counter, he was directed to a table at which he was presented with bottled water and bananas.
The plates served here are heavy on the rice and come with a side of salad as well. Presentation is fairly plain on normal dishes with a plastic fork and spoon. The fish plate is so-​so and the chicken kabob plate is fairly good and tender. The bottom line is that Safari Grill is quite an interesting foray into Somalian culture, without the civil wars and political instability.
PROS:
— The $ 8 meal combos are very filling.
— Awesome green hot sauce. Make sure you try some of that stuff — it’s incomparable to anything else!
CONS:
— No metal cutlery for dining in.
— Very limited parking in the lot out front.
— It’s a bit difficult at times to understand the server’s accent.

As other people have noted, the place is a dive — but they have very good food, HUGE portions, great service from very nice people, and halal/​zabiha meat.
Oh, and it’s cheap: my wife & I got two large plates of lamb & rice (which neither of us could finish, and I am a big eater), two Cokes, and the waiter brought us bananas on the side. all for $ 16 total.
Not a place to be missed if you like Somali food, or if you’re just looking for something different.

Ever walk in to a place, ask for a menu, and have the guy behind the counter respond like he doesn’t know what a menu is? Well, welcome to Safari Grill! The ‘menu’ (such as it is) features about 6 or 7 dishes, pictured along the back wall above the window to the kitchen — where hijab-​covered women surry around a steaming stove and succulent smells waft from the hot grill. No prices are listed, but the man behind the counter said that they’re all «around $ 8». I had the soup, which wasn’t listed at all, but cost $ 1.50. (Make sure to ask for the green hot-​sauce, which was like nothing I’ve had before.) This place is worth a visit for the experience alone … I’m guessing here, but I bet it’s quite similar to its counterpart in Mogadishu.
If you’ve never had Somali food, it’s a bit like Ethiopian … but don’t tell that to people from either of those places!