Kenyan Cafe and Cuisine

Great service. Ordered ahead and food was ready on time. No disappointmens here with sausage, samos and Tusker. Everyone was friendly. Restaurant AND bathrooms –very clean! Music fit the atmosphere and just perfected the visit. Come by and check it out!

Love coming to this place for a delicious Kenyan meal. I lived in Nairobi for three years and have been traveling to Kenya for the past five, and this place reminds me of home there. My mouth is watering just thinking about the food… So good! Be prepared to take your time with the meal… Relax, have a tusker or some chai. You will wait for the food, but it is definitely worth it!

Kenya. Check. Tanzania Check.
if you’re looking for some solid Kenyan food this place is great. We ordered the Kuku Kienyeji. The chicken was cooked to perfect and mixed with spices that I am not sure of, but tasted delicious. While the Chicken was the hero, the lentils were the surprise of the night. Lentils! Lentils! Lentils! I don’t get excited for them but they were good! We had the Chicken with Ugali, another starchy, solid filler-​upper.
Overall, the food was excellent. The menu boasts authenticity and natural organic products, which is why i think this place is so good! Seems like this place is a one-​woman show who some excellent food! Not sure where the website takes me on the Unilocal site though.
Order the Kuku Kienyeji for some authentic Kenyan cuisine
Make sure to pair it with Ugali if you’re looking to knock off other countries in the region. For me, ugali is eaten throughout many African countries, particularly Tanzania — so Tanzania gets the credit here with Ugali.

Took my girlfriend here. She lived in Kenya for several years and can vouch that it’s very authentic. We both loved this place and have been back several times! I’m personally a huge fan of the lam stew. Only small complaint is it take a little extra time to get food.

We live close to this place and we’ve been meaning to try it out. I’m so glad we finally did. Some of the dishes aren’t going to knock your socks off but the meat is AMAZING. Super tender, juicy, and well seasoned. I had the lamb stew with rice and lentils. The spices on the lamb were delicious. My fiancé had the sampler platter and the beef stew was really delicious too. My friend had the BBQ beef, I didn’t get to try it, but she enjoyed it.
As far as appetizers, I wish we’d tried the samosas (we had the other one instead) and it was just fried bread, nothing to write home
But overall, good, clean place, friendly service, and a tasty trip into Kenyan cuisine. Even people with a not so adventurous pallette would enjoy a meal at this humble spot.
Will absolutely be eating here again!

Finding this place was a lovely surprise. I lived in Kenya for a few months and had been nostalgic for the food there. The food does take a bit to prepare, so order some chai tea while you wait. I get the vegetarian plate with ugali (though if it’s your first time you may not care for this). Overall very authentic and yummy.

Tonight we tried Kenyan food for the first time! This little tiny out of the way place has good food. The seasonings were nice not too strong.
I tried the Vegertarian Combo platter and Cory had the Bbq beef which was a bit chewy. I will definitely come again to try something new

Let me tell you that I’ve lived in Kenya for 10 years. I miss my second home. That being said, I love this place. Food is good. reminds me of… Kenya! The waiter/​chef/​owner? is very nice. The only problem i had with this place is that there only seems to be one waiter and so the wait is pretty long, sometimes. But I love this place over all!

Very good!

Food and service was fantastic! My daughter’s 3^rd grade class was learning about Kenya and I ordered food for them to sample. We ordered rice, lentils, mandazi (similar to a beignet/​donut) and chapati (thin flour tortilla).
Since they are only open in the evenings, they prepared the food for me the night before and gave me instructions on heating it up. The server was also kind enough to give me Kenyan tea to prepare for the students (as well as how to make it!).
It was a wonderful experience for the kids and the server made it super easy for me.
Thank you!

This is my first time eating African food. Something different and trying of another culture. Came with some friends to try. This place was kind of dead for a Saturday. Walked in at around 6:30 and no one. So that was a big off for me. I believe there is only 1 person working here. So front AND back cooking. She was nice to us and gave us a good service I felt.
The food did take a long time to come out. Like 40 mins almost? I know it’s cause only 1 person was working so it’s understandable. As for the food itself, I really liked the lamb stew. I think the lamb stew was super good with the white bread looking thing. (Dont know the same) the Bbq beef was dry to me, but my friends did like it. The chicken tastes like curry chicken so I felt like there wasn’t anything special about that. The taste of the food was overall good, but the look of it was kind of disappointing. Like if you see it, everything looks like the same thing. Same color too. It looks unappetizing in my opinion. But in this case, looks IS deceiving. I felt like this place is a good try for something new and like I said, it’s my first African restaurant. I did enjoy it.

I wished they had stew. I had a chicken dish and my friend got the bbq lamb. We never had Kenyan food so the flavors were surprisingly not bad. Chapati (kind of like a tortilla but chewier and thinner) was nice with the bbq lamb and collard greens. Make sure the ugati is paired with a sauce dish because it has absolutely no flavor, worst than white rice.
Overall, it was ok. Oh yeah, we were the only ones there at 6pm and food took a long time to come out (probably 30−40min).

On a whim, I purchased a
coupon for Kenyan Café, jumped into my car, and roared out to Anaheim. After a 45 minute drive in traffic, I was told by the server that the restaurant no longer honors Unilocal offers or
vouchers. I know I should have done my research and read Jack L’s review before going, but why is an inactive deal (reported in February 2014) still available for purchase on the website? Even if the offer is no longer available, the restaurant should still honor it once, for the sake of marketing and PR. They refused and I immediately had a poor initial impression of the business.
I stayed to dine in since it was late and I was unfamiliar with alternatives in the area. The menu did highlight a positive — only natural ingredients and spices are sourced, no artificial preservatives and no canned ingredients are used.
I ordered the kuku kienyej with sides of chapati and sukuma wiki, along with a Kenyan coffee. After the server took my order, she went to the kitchen and prepared food from scratch. It was a one woman-​show on Friday night. The supplied utensils were a fork and spoon, so I suppose the eating style is different from Ethiopian cuisine, where use of such tools is not permitted.
The kuku is a Kenyan chicken stew, with chicken thigh cut into small fillets and cooked in Kenyan herbs and spices «from the slopes Mt. Kenya». The chicken was extremely tender but the thick stew was very mild, on the borderline of being bland. Very similar to an Indian chicken curry. Sukuma wiki is sauteed collard greens cooked with chopped onions. It tasted juicy and is nutritious, my favorite. A little thicker than spinach and goes well with meat stews. Chapati was the standard flatbread cooked on a griddle. This Kenyan-​staple is very similar to Indian roti, and it was a bit greasy due to the addition of oil. Finally, the Kenyan coffee was terrible, it tasted like gas station coffee, heavy bodied without any floral, juicy, and wine notes as expected from an east-​African coffee. There was also a lot of fine sediments at the bottom of the cup. Would recommend the Tusker beer over this coffee.
The damage for my dinner was $ 18 including tax and tip. Without a Groupon or
coupon, the value was extremely poor and I will probably not be returning anytime soon without a discount offer.

Way cool!
The food was fantastic. Had the mbozi choma (bbq lamb), with sukuma wiki (collards), and chapati. It also came with kachumbari (kind of a salsa…)! The flavors of everything blew me away! I’m a sucker for good collards. These are way different than southern-​style, though; a finer texture, for starters…
I tasted the kuku (traditional chicken) and that is (one of the dishes) I’ll be ordering on my next visit :) The flavors were amazing!
Also had the chai masala; WOW! Wow. Very nice. SO TENDER! It comes unsweetened (a huge ‘plus’ for me; no big sweet tooth here) but is served with sugar on the side.
Service was exceptional. The (owner?) man who took care of us was very accommodating. Especially since we stopped in shortly before they were closing.
He kept checking in to make sure everything was alright, but we didn’t feel like he was hovering.
It’s a small place with a few tables and a bar/​counter set up. There are TVs to watch the game (s). Very laid back.
The only thing I would change is the tableside hot sauce. I think it was Tapatio in a generic squeeze bottle. I do love me some Tapatio, but I was hoping fore something a bit more pungent.
If that’s my only complaint, they’re definitely doing something right.
Try them out.

I had never had Kenyan food before this dinner out with friends, but it was delicious! The staff was very kind and my lamb stew with lentils and chapati was so good! Try the Masala Chai too because it’s really good.
I ate here with several friends and although the restaurant is pretty small, they were very accomodating. The restaurant is not facing the street but is in a small strip mall, so it can be a little tricky to find, but it’s worth it.
I hope to return soon because I’ve been craving that lamb stew!
And just so you know, service is very slow. Don’t expect to get here, eat, and leave in an hour. Enjoy the slow pace and respect the culture differences. Meals in many countries aren’t for dining and dashing anyway.

As I am leading a team to Kenya next month, I wanted them to experience what the food we will be eating is going to be like. The restaurant I was hoping to go to in L.A. closed down and so I thought I’d pickup food from Kenyan Café and Cuisine and bring the food to our team meeting.
I pre-​ordered the food several days in advance and the gal taking my order was very helpful, very passionate, and did a great job helping me figure out what would be best to serve 9 people.
I picked up the order on a Saturday evening and the restaurant was pretty full. It’s not in the best neighborhood and I walked in as the only white person into the restaurant and other customers looked at me like they were curious why I was there, but staff was very friendly and accomodating. Not super impressed with the décor or feel of the place so I doubt I’d come to dine in. They had my order ready and waiting for me all packaged up and ready to go. I was very impressed by that. They even gave me tips for reheating.
The next day at the meeting we reheated the food and tried the lamb stew, beef stew, chicken stew (which was really awesome), lentils, chipati, ugali, and collards. The food was pretty much what I remembered from my last trip to Africa so I was pleased with it’s authenticity.
Although I had questioned the amount of food for 9 people, they had certianly given us enough and we even had leftovers! Portion sizes are right. Prices are fair. We spent $ 95 (excluding drinks) for 9 people.
This is certainly a good representation of what the food is like in East Africa without it being Americanized. (No chocolate lava cakes and «African style» fried mozzerella sticks on this menu!)

a disappointing second visit to kenyan café. i ordered the same exact thing (veggie combo meal) as last time, but this time it was bland and mediocre. it’s like they forgot to season all of the four dishes — or they are now cooking for old people who like bland food. what happened? :(
though kenyan café still has the same (limited) vegetarian options (many of which they claim are vegan), i would like to support this family run business. however, i can’t bring myself to return if the food is going to be so bland. at least Joe L knew about the hot sauce, and that definitely helped to add some flavor. otherwise i would have stopped eating after only a few bites.

What happened?
My wife and I returned here and it’s like a different restaurant. I don’t know if I can recommend Kenyan for vegetarians, or anyone who doesn’t use a Unilocal Deal or Living Social deal like we did.
It’s nice to see that they’re doing better business than our first visit. We sat down and looked at the menu which has stayed the same (only one veggie combo meal). This time we decided to try the mandazi appetizer which we were told was vegetarian. Sandya ordered a Tusker and I ordered a zinfandel.
Our drinks came after a short wait, and, no lie, I was given a white zinfandel. Ugh. I decided not to send it back. Our vegetarian combo entrees arrived first, followed by the mandazi a few minutes later.
That cabbage I raved about last time? I think they may have changed the recipe. It was still more flavorful than boiled cabbage, but it didn’t have nearly the appeal that it had at our previous visit. In fact, all of the dishes were much blander than we had remembered. The mandazi was also unexciting (basically it’s fried dough).
I’m glad I referred to Unilocal before coming back because someone mentioned the hot sauce. I couldn’t get our server’s attention (I think that it was Charles, the owner) so I grabbed a bottle myself from an empty table. It tasted like Frank’s, but it was sorely needed for our meal.
Now, what could account for the difference this time?
Theory #1 — The fact that there were other customers this time might explain the lower quality of service. It shouldn’t have made a difference with the food, though.
Theory #2 — Our server was chatting with his buddies at the bar for most of the time. We noticed that he seemed a bit friendlier to us after they left. Maybe it was just our imagination.
Theory #3 — We don’t speak Swahili. We have never been to Africa. I wonder if my sister’s gregarious boyfriend made the difference last time? Charles was hanging with us for at least half of the duration of our meal, chatting in Swahili and English. Did we get the more «authentic» recipes that time?
Theory #4 — I don’t think I mentioned the Unilocal Deal until the end of the meal last time. This time, I mentioned the Living Social deal when we ordered. Coincidence?
There is certainly a much better variety of meat dishes here than vegetarian. If I ever return, that’s what I’ll have to go for. As I write this, the Unilocal Deal is still active. Don’t come here without it.

I ate at this restaurant as part of a African Studies class I’m taking and wow, I was really impressed. I’m a very picky eater and usually don’t stray from my usual restaurants but I’m really happy I was open minded and decided to eat at Kenyan Café and Cuisine.
It is a small restaurant and there is very minimal staff but the owner came and greeted us with a smile, offered help (since I’m sure he looked very confused), and even made suggestions when we were completely unsure of what to order.
The food was very good. I ordered the chicken, rice and lentils and I finished most of it — which is rare for me! My aunt chose the bbq beef with rice and cabbage. We were both very pleased with our meals and kept picking off each others plates. The samoas were also delicious! I have had them before from an Indian restaurant but I believe these were much better. I even ordered some to go!
All of the food on the menu is made from scratch without any artificial flavors, MSGs, grade A meat and even offered vegetarian/​vegan dishes.
Overall, I think this place is great and I hope to return again in the future. I spoke with the owner and he said they’ve been in business for two years and I wish him and his partner all the success in the world.

We tried the Ethiopian restaurant next door a couple of months back and made a note to try this Kenyan Café that’s in the same plaza. We came for dinner on a Saturday and this restaurant was relatively mellow, with a couple of tables of regulars. The service was friendly and the server helped us with ordering the food. We went with the Sampler Plate — lamb, beef, lentils, cabbage, kidney beans, collard greens, as well as sides of rice and flat bread, with an order of the beef samosas. The beef samosas were very good — reminded me of empanadas, but the flavor profile is more spicy. The Sampler plate was perfect for the two of us, plus we got to try alittle bit of everything. I highly recommend the beef, as it was tender and moist. The lamb was good too, but the beef was alot better.
Get the Tusker beer! Great Kenyan beer and we were so glad we got to try this restaurant.