Tasting Africa - Eating at Mariam's Restaurant

In the heat of activity this weekend, we were toying with the idea of going to town and having dinner and a movie. There's a new flick at the Nugget for kids, and movies like that don't stick around too long, so we wanted to check it out before it was gone. Also a chance to eat at our favorite eatery, Boloco. However, it does take a lot of time out of the day, and with all that's going on, we decided to stay local.

With this in mind, we'd heard about a new restaurant in Windsor called Mariam's. It was billed as having authentic African fare, Tanzanian I believe, which spoke volumes to us since our work is focused on Tanzania. They also offered standard American food. Of course, there was no way we weren't going to try the African selections. Plus, it wasn't too far.

We went over and checked it out, and it was hopping. A good sign. I'm no expert on African food, but we loved the restaurant. I'd eaten at a few African restaurants in NYC, and this was just as good. Killer samosas, we had the variety plate - veggie, ground beef, and chicken/spinach. The dipping sauce was to die for, this yogurt mint concoction. We ordered three entrees, the Curry Kuku with rice, Wali Na Kuku (chicken with veggies and coconut milk sauce), and the special, a kind of curried cauliflower. The food was excellent, and not painfully expensive. It reminded me of Thai food, coconut-ty and slightly spice, though we learned later that you can request varying degrees of heat. Good to know, though I like hot, myself.

It was a nice meal, and there was a continual flow of people through the door. I think the combination of the exotic and the highly predictable make it appealing to all walks of life. Nice to have something different that we like.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Kriss Szkurlatowski for the pic.