Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Goat-bloated from Café Royale

Most coffee roasters throw away the shell, but it has the best flavors!”

Lot of bone, but a lot of meat, too
Lot of bone, but a lot of meat, too

It’s the kids. They’re all over the table. And into the spaghetti and goat. All except Anas and Khalid. The two older boys are plowing into their own plate of chicken drumsticks.

Their dad has left them here to eat for a few minutes. He’s ordered the boys a feast: Goat, chicken, spaghetti, mango drinks.

Anas, Adnan, Khalid, Anwar attack their meal

Me, I found this place on my way up from Food 4 Less. “The East African Fusion Destination,” it says outside. I come in to this scene: Anas, Adnan, cousin Khalid, Anwar, and Mohammed the two-year-old are somehow making their food spread look like a feast for kings.

I head for the counter, start to ask Abdi the server guy for a Somali coffee, then can’t resist going for a sambusa. They’re $1.99. What’s to lose?

“Fish, vegetarian, chicken?” says Abdi.

“No beef?”

“No beef, and we may be out of chicken. Fish is good, though.”

I end up ordering the vegetarian one, plus red sauce and green sauce. “Green’s hot,” says Abdi.

I settle in to wait for my order. Look around. Customers are a mix of Somalis and western guys. Lot of the western guys carry change-of-clothes bags. Fresh in from workouts, I’d say. Planet Fitness is just a few doors down.

Sponsored
Sponsored

One or two customers are dressed in white robes and skullcap, gear a Somali gent would wear back home in the Horn of Africa.

“Is that all you’re having, one sambusa?” says Anwar. He’s the seven-year-old brother. He’s leaning over the back of the kids’ booth. He starts flipping the pages of the menu. And it lands on the page of the “Goat Feast Royale.”

“That’s what we’ve got,” he says.

“Goat cubes mixed in and grilled with a blend of vegetables,” menu says. Aargh! I love goat. Usually tastes like buffalo, camel (which I once had further down University, at Coffee Time Daily), boar, venison. All a little gamey.

Veggie sambusa and sauces: the green’s the hot one

Abdi brings my veggie sambusa and coffee (medium, $1.49). The sambusa is pretty decent, especially with that green sauce heating up the crisp pastry. But, man, it’s the coffee. Sweet, seductive, swirling with wafts of cardamom, cinnamon...stuff dreams are made of.

But still the goat calls. Costs $10.99. Comes with basmati rice and a salad. I have to order it. Even though they have a ton of alternatives. And, looks like, mostly not Somali.

Plentiful rice

“This place is really trying to reach out,” says this guy behind me. Bile (Pronounced bee-lay. The name means “light from the moon,” he says. “Because his mom saw he was such a radiant baby, back there in Somalia,” says his friend Abdul.)

Bile and Abdul are two older gents who’ve come to talk politics over coffee. “These are hybrid foods here,” Bile says. “But then, Somalia is a mixture itself. Our spaghetti habit comes from the Italians when they colonized us. So the owners here are trying to make this a place for everybody, not just Somalis.”

So, sure, there are Somali essentials like the fuul plate (basically, stewed pinto beans and pita bread, $6.49) and chicken mushkaki (skewers of chicken kebab and rice, $10.99), but right beside them, a whole rack of American food. Like, a Philly cheese-steak sandwich that goes for $6.99 or $8.99 in combo with rice and salad, or Burger Royale (same prices). There’s even a chicken quesadilla for $7.99 ($9.99 for the combo).

The kids have just about demolished their three piles of food by the time my goat arrives. Man. Whopping. Piles of goat-on-the-bone with the rice and salad piled up against them. And the goat tastes bold, and hot with that green sauce. You need the basmati rice to calm things down.

So, now I’m talking to Bile and Abdul again. “Goat was fine, sambusa great, but you know what?” I say. “It’s this coffee that’s outstanding. What is it about it?”

“Ah. Qahwe,” says Bile. “A special kind of coffee. Nearer to tea, some say. They use the shell, the husk of the coffee bean, not the bean itself. Most coffee roasters throw away the shell, but it has the best flavors! The best vitamins. And plenty of caffeine.”

“At home, when we fast during Ramadan,” says Abdul, “we drink the coffee-shell drink because it quenches your thirst for much longer.”

Wow. This is the first time I’ve even heard of it. And, yes, the cardamom and cinnamon are part of it, but that coffee’s refreshing taste is the thing.

And when you think of it, it makes sense. With most fruit we eat the skin and outside flesh and throw away the seed. With coffee, they throw away the skin and outside flesh and only use the seed. Or do in most places. But not in coffee’s ancient birthplaces, like Yemen and Ethiopia and Somalia. Over there, the “coffee-tea” of the coffee-bean husk is a delicacy called qahwe, or quishr, or hashara.

All that untapped caffeine and sweetness! Some have even called qahwe Nature’s Red Bull.

I mean, this African secret has been out there for thousands of years? And I’m just hearing about it casually in a Somali restaurant tonight?

’Course, all this time I’m working away at my goat, cutting the meat from the bone and chowing into that deeply satisfying goat taste.

And, yeah, I’m thinking as I waddle back down University, totally goat-bloated: why’s goat so rare? There’s another dish that’s having a problem making it through the borders of our minds. I swear, places like Café Royale are gastro-embassies from the rest of the world we need.

I’d come back for the goat, but, if this dee-lish qahwe really is coffee-skin tea, I’ll be back just for the kick of discovering coffee’s Next Big Thing.

Place

Café Royale

6511 University Avenue, San Diego

Hours: 11 a.m.–10 p.m. daily (till 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday)

Prices: Sambusas, $1.99 each; hummus and pita, $4.99; mashmash (fried Somali donut), $1; fuul plate, pita bread, $6.49; chicken mushkaki (skewers of chicken kebab, rice), $10.99; Philly cheese-steak sandwich, $6.99 ($8.99 combo with rice, salad); Burger Royale, $6.99/$8.99; chicken quesadilla, $7.99/$9.99; goat feast Royale, $10.99; lamb shanks Royale, $14.99; chicken leg Royale, $9.99; sweet chili deluxe fries (with chicken strips), $9.99; grilled chicken wrap, $4.99 ($6.99, combo)

Bus: 7

Nearest bus stop: University Avenue at Bonillo Drive

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Taco Taco Poway still has 99-cent fish tacos

Tacotopia prizewinner is well known among Powegians
Next Article

Will L.A. Times crowd out San Diego U-T at Riverside printing plant?

Will Toni Atkins stand back from anti-SDG&E initiative?
Lot of bone, but a lot of meat, too
Lot of bone, but a lot of meat, too

It’s the kids. They’re all over the table. And into the spaghetti and goat. All except Anas and Khalid. The two older boys are plowing into their own plate of chicken drumsticks.

Their dad has left them here to eat for a few minutes. He’s ordered the boys a feast: Goat, chicken, spaghetti, mango drinks.

Anas, Adnan, Khalid, Anwar attack their meal

Me, I found this place on my way up from Food 4 Less. “The East African Fusion Destination,” it says outside. I come in to this scene: Anas, Adnan, cousin Khalid, Anwar, and Mohammed the two-year-old are somehow making their food spread look like a feast for kings.

I head for the counter, start to ask Abdi the server guy for a Somali coffee, then can’t resist going for a sambusa. They’re $1.99. What’s to lose?

“Fish, vegetarian, chicken?” says Abdi.

“No beef?”

“No beef, and we may be out of chicken. Fish is good, though.”

I end up ordering the vegetarian one, plus red sauce and green sauce. “Green’s hot,” says Abdi.

I settle in to wait for my order. Look around. Customers are a mix of Somalis and western guys. Lot of the western guys carry change-of-clothes bags. Fresh in from workouts, I’d say. Planet Fitness is just a few doors down.

Sponsored
Sponsored

One or two customers are dressed in white robes and skullcap, gear a Somali gent would wear back home in the Horn of Africa.

“Is that all you’re having, one sambusa?” says Anwar. He’s the seven-year-old brother. He’s leaning over the back of the kids’ booth. He starts flipping the pages of the menu. And it lands on the page of the “Goat Feast Royale.”

“That’s what we’ve got,” he says.

“Goat cubes mixed in and grilled with a blend of vegetables,” menu says. Aargh! I love goat. Usually tastes like buffalo, camel (which I once had further down University, at Coffee Time Daily), boar, venison. All a little gamey.

Veggie sambusa and sauces: the green’s the hot one

Abdi brings my veggie sambusa and coffee (medium, $1.49). The sambusa is pretty decent, especially with that green sauce heating up the crisp pastry. But, man, it’s the coffee. Sweet, seductive, swirling with wafts of cardamom, cinnamon...stuff dreams are made of.

But still the goat calls. Costs $10.99. Comes with basmati rice and a salad. I have to order it. Even though they have a ton of alternatives. And, looks like, mostly not Somali.

Plentiful rice

“This place is really trying to reach out,” says this guy behind me. Bile (Pronounced bee-lay. The name means “light from the moon,” he says. “Because his mom saw he was such a radiant baby, back there in Somalia,” says his friend Abdul.)

Bile and Abdul are two older gents who’ve come to talk politics over coffee. “These are hybrid foods here,” Bile says. “But then, Somalia is a mixture itself. Our spaghetti habit comes from the Italians when they colonized us. So the owners here are trying to make this a place for everybody, not just Somalis.”

So, sure, there are Somali essentials like the fuul plate (basically, stewed pinto beans and pita bread, $6.49) and chicken mushkaki (skewers of chicken kebab and rice, $10.99), but right beside them, a whole rack of American food. Like, a Philly cheese-steak sandwich that goes for $6.99 or $8.99 in combo with rice and salad, or Burger Royale (same prices). There’s even a chicken quesadilla for $7.99 ($9.99 for the combo).

The kids have just about demolished their three piles of food by the time my goat arrives. Man. Whopping. Piles of goat-on-the-bone with the rice and salad piled up against them. And the goat tastes bold, and hot with that green sauce. You need the basmati rice to calm things down.

So, now I’m talking to Bile and Abdul again. “Goat was fine, sambusa great, but you know what?” I say. “It’s this coffee that’s outstanding. What is it about it?”

“Ah. Qahwe,” says Bile. “A special kind of coffee. Nearer to tea, some say. They use the shell, the husk of the coffee bean, not the bean itself. Most coffee roasters throw away the shell, but it has the best flavors! The best vitamins. And plenty of caffeine.”

“At home, when we fast during Ramadan,” says Abdul, “we drink the coffee-shell drink because it quenches your thirst for much longer.”

Wow. This is the first time I’ve even heard of it. And, yes, the cardamom and cinnamon are part of it, but that coffee’s refreshing taste is the thing.

And when you think of it, it makes sense. With most fruit we eat the skin and outside flesh and throw away the seed. With coffee, they throw away the skin and outside flesh and only use the seed. Or do in most places. But not in coffee’s ancient birthplaces, like Yemen and Ethiopia and Somalia. Over there, the “coffee-tea” of the coffee-bean husk is a delicacy called qahwe, or quishr, or hashara.

All that untapped caffeine and sweetness! Some have even called qahwe Nature’s Red Bull.

I mean, this African secret has been out there for thousands of years? And I’m just hearing about it casually in a Somali restaurant tonight?

’Course, all this time I’m working away at my goat, cutting the meat from the bone and chowing into that deeply satisfying goat taste.

And, yeah, I’m thinking as I waddle back down University, totally goat-bloated: why’s goat so rare? There’s another dish that’s having a problem making it through the borders of our minds. I swear, places like Café Royale are gastro-embassies from the rest of the world we need.

I’d come back for the goat, but, if this dee-lish qahwe really is coffee-skin tea, I’ll be back just for the kick of discovering coffee’s Next Big Thing.

Place

Café Royale

6511 University Avenue, San Diego

Hours: 11 a.m.–10 p.m. daily (till 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday)

Prices: Sambusas, $1.99 each; hummus and pita, $4.99; mashmash (fried Somali donut), $1; fuul plate, pita bread, $6.49; chicken mushkaki (skewers of chicken kebab, rice), $10.99; Philly cheese-steak sandwich, $6.99 ($8.99 combo with rice, salad); Burger Royale, $6.99/$8.99; chicken quesadilla, $7.99/$9.99; goat feast Royale, $10.99; lamb shanks Royale, $14.99; chicken leg Royale, $9.99; sweet chili deluxe fries (with chicken strips), $9.99; grilled chicken wrap, $4.99 ($6.99, combo)

Bus: 7

Nearest bus stop: University Avenue at Bonillo Drive

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Tyler Farr, Blue Water Film Festival, Mustache Bash

Events March 21-March 23, 2024
Next Article

Will L.A. Times crowd out San Diego U-T at Riverside printing plant?

Will Toni Atkins stand back from anti-SDG&E initiative?
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.