The work squad decided to try African cuisine so we decided to hit up Nyala African Restaurant which was located in the hustle and bustle of Brunswick Street in Fitzroy. I made a booking for a friday night and made my way upstairs to wait for the others.
We were all greeted by the lovely staff and was shown the menu. There were African alcoholic beverages and the specials for the night were on the board. It was much easier to get the banquet since we had 9 people and would be able to taste 9 different mains so we decided to get the $38 banquet (per person). First up was the dippies which came out with mahloul bread (mountain bread). The dips includes tahini (yoghurt based), lentils and deberja (cooked eggplants). The deberja is my favourite and the lentils do have a punch to it so be careful when you have the lentils if you’re not a big fan of spiciness. The mahloul bread is a really thin bread which comes with the dippies and its absolutely gorgeous!
Dips (left to right): Tahini, Lentils & Deberja
Next was the Abeba gomen (cauliflower) and baboutie. The cauliflower looked like chicken (I was TRICKED! Haha) and they steam it first, battered with eggs and then fried. This was pretty delish!! What I was super excited about was the baboutie which was a mixture of mince beef, fruit chutney, sultanas, almonds and other spices. THIS WAS AMAZEBALL!! I couldn’t get enough of this and Mr Tequila thought it’ll be even better with rice or pasta (LOOOL!).
Abeba Gomen & Baboutie
Inside of the Abeba Gomen
Mr Tequila was getting quite full already (well he did finish the dippies and the baboutie all by himself) and then the mains came out. The table was packed full and we were overwhelmed by the selection and forgot what was what. We had a few chicken dishes and the one pictured below was the chicken curry and I wasn’t a fan of that dish. The salad was quite refreshing which balanced all the meats out.
There were lentils (this one wasn’t the ‘angry’ one which means it wasn’t spicy at all) and steamed veggies for some of the healthy troopers around the table.
This was a lovely chicken dish. The chicken was so tender and the flavour was awesome sauce.
The best main dish of the night – the lamb sizzling plate. THIS WAS SENSATIONAL! LOVE THIS DISH!!!
The main dishes came with steamed yellow savoury rice, injera and even couscous. There was a lot of choices and everyone was super duper full!
After all the savoury dishes, dessert came out. We got a selection of the sweet donuts, custard tart and the traditional sweet banana cake Tafach mooz. The donut was quite hard and tasted a bit stale and we weren’t a fan of it except for Mr Hipster. The custard tart was quite average as well which was disappointing. I quite enjoyed the Tafach Mooz, it wasn’t overly sweet and the layers of banana and cinnamon, oh my lord, it was oh so delish!
Desserts (top to bottom): Sweet donuts, custard tart and Tafach Mooz
Finally, we had tea and coffee to end the night and we decided to get the ethiopian coffee Buna. This was super duper strong and quite bitter. I only needed half a tea spoon of sugar. This coffee kept me up till 2AM in the morning but it worked at keeping me awake!
Nyala African Restaurant is hidden upstairs on the main road and has exceptional service where they make you feel welcome and are very humble. The food however, some dishes were AMAZEBALL and others were a bit average. If you haven’t tried african food before, this is a nice place to start off with.
The work squad and I received 25% off the bill with the Entertainment Book at Nyala African Restaurant. If you are interested in purchasing the Entertainment Book for loads (and I mean LOADS) of awesome sauce foodie discounts and 20% of memberships sold will go to Sane Australia, just click here.
1/356 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, VIC 3065
Tel: (03) 9419 9128
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