Return to Flavors of East Africa plus Eclipse

Hey, there's that pig on the building again!

Didn't you just blog this, you say?

Turns out this was day when KDB and I tried coming here...

Eclipse and Flavors of East Africa

No, not "The Twilight Sage: Eclipse", but Eclipse on El Cajon next to Luigi's.

This weekend, we wanted to try this African place in North Park. They weren't open 'til 12 noon and it was only 11:30 so Bert got a coffee here while we killed some time.

This was just their regular house coffee with their cute little container for the cream! They were having Sunday Brunch but we were only there for coffee (and chocolate).

There were works by local artists...This one was called "Patches". Looks like a wanna be Gloomy Bear (a San X character who is also a pink bear but with bloody claws). This one looks too happy to me. Plus Gloomy Bear doesn't have a heart on its chest.

We'll have to try their brunch menu next time. Their offerings looked pretty good and ooh look, fancy napkins, eh!

I printed this coupon from the Flavors of East Africa official website (20% off the whole bill!):

Flavors of East Africa is where the old Pomegranate used to be. It's next to Gilly's  Sports Bar and next to that is Pomegranate with merged with Petrushka (which I still want to try since the food is "Georgian" not really Russian).

Menu board outside. There is also a small wooden stand with postcards. Make sure to pick up one of those because that postcard is also a coupon (20% off the entire bill)!

Click here to see their menu online...

Our strategy was to order different items with different sides so we could all sample everyone's food.

We didn't even bother with the Kids Menu. They almost always suck. Fried this, fried that. As if kids will only eat fried ass food and nothing else.

We were the first customers there and got to pick anywhere we wanted to sit. We picked the front corner booth (better lighting!).

Nice and bright walls with various African textiles and wooden decorations, like the fork and spoon!

TC and I had our matching grey skinny jeans on. She had her Vans skater shoes on (yes, she can really skateboard). Those are my pointy toed flats.

For TC we ordered the pineapple lemonade drink which she really liked. I liked that flavor combination...

We ordered the Sambussas appetizer which comes with six of your choice. We chose two beef, two chicken, and two potato. The sauces were tamarind and mint; the latter had a bit of a kick to it, surprisingly.

The beef was my favorite. I wish these sambussas were bigger! I could eat just these. The other choices were lentil (not a fan) and some sweet one with coconut and cream cheese (ugh).

Okay, now let's get down to the real deal. This was the "Keema" ground beef plate. You could choose your choice of one starch and one side. My starch was that big white anvil-like thing on my plate, which is called Ugali (steamed corn flour). The waiter (who was super nice) suggested that since the ugali is dry, it should be paired up with a saucy side dish. In that case, I chose the Biringanya which is chopped eggplant in a tomato basil sauce.

The eggplant had basically melted into the sauce and I couldn't really taste it. I did see a few eggplant seeds so I knew eggplant was in there somehow. The sauce was also a little creamy and had a few of these things in it (see below). When I asked what they were, the server said they were some sort of seed. He also didn't know what type of "African" spices were in the sauce. In my past experience whenever I've asked about ingredients and such, most servers either know it, or if they don't, offer to find out. So, we never found out and I didn't feel like pressing him for more info even though I really wanted to know what this was. The seed things were soft and had no real flavor of their own, but added some texture to the sauce which was a bit thin.  The ground beef had some unusual seasonings in it. Again, who knows what it was, but it tasted pretty good.

I ate about half the beef and made a tiny tiny dent in that corn flour anvil. It was quite plain and didn't really "soak" up the sauce. The ugali is not spongy but had a rather thick and dense texture.

Bert's got the Chicken Curry (cooked with coconut milk and "mysterious" African spices). His sides were the Chapati (an African flatbread kind of like a tortilla, but not; perhaps more like a roti), and the Sukuma Wiki which were collard greens and cabbage sauteed with garlic.

Bert's chapati was useful in soaking up the sauces and picking up the meat...I just liked the thin texture.

TC's plate consisted of the beef short ribs with Wali (rice) and a side of Nyoyo which was beans and hominy sauteed with garlic, carrots, tomatoes and chunks of potato. The ribs were thin and cross cut. She enjoyed eating that and gave us a few pieces. I liked the bits of hominy on her plate. It's wierd not having it in pozole form.

We liked all of our entrees. The side dish I liked the least was my Ugali; I thought it was too bland. I  liked the Nyoyo side dish and Bert's vegetable side the best. My vegetable side was really just a thin sauce so it didn't seem as "vegetably" as theirs did.

Since I picked up their postcard coupon, we plan to come back so we can try some of their main specialties such as the goat meat, oxtail and dried beef entrees. We kind of played it safe that day but I'd love to come back here again.

And not to sound like an a-hole, but if you don't like that Paul Simon "Graceland" crap (like I do), or similar sounding "World" music (kind of like Police drummer Stewart Copeland's solo album, "The Rhythmatist"), then bring some earplugs, because they play that here! A lot.  Luckily, their soundtrack is not entirely that genre. They also had some African rap and pop which was slightly better and more interesting to listen to.