safari restaurant rainier

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Welcome to Safari Njema Restaurant

At Safari Restaurant, our goal is to bring the joy of food expressed through the unique cuisines of East Africa. Come in today for a taste of Kenyan Cuisine.

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5041 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118  Tel. 206-723-3058

Safari Njema

east African food

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Jane Kagira

Safari Njema was started in June of 2020 by Jane Kagira, head chef and owner, who has been trained in the culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu.

She is well-experienced in cooking, and managed a restaurant in Kenya, where she grew up. Jane’s passion has always been to cook, and she strives to make every guest’s dining experience special.

YELP reviews

Fried Tilapia

Beef Samosa

"We're interested in East African food. Found this place where the food is very good. Of course it takes long to prepare the fried tilapia, pilau, chicken and vegetables. Service is slow like in the home country. But the atmosphere makes up for the wait with interesting characters who speak in tongues familiar to our ears. If you can make time it's a good journey to Safari restaurant."

"Really appreciated that the food was all super rich but not at all oily; its so nice to enjoy a fun meal out without the tummy ache* Affordable too! Would absolutely return for more :)"

Fried fish was great. Jane the host was fantastic."

"The food is unique and absolutely slaps."

Fruit Salad

"Beautiful and Delicious"

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5041 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118

Hours of Operation

Monday: 11AM-10PM

Tuesday: Closed

Wednesday: 11AM-10PM

Thursday: 11AM-10PM

Friday: 11AM-10PM

Saturday: 11AM-10PM

Sunday: 2-9PM

Safari Njema Restaurant

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Safari Restaurant

Customer ratings and reviews.

Authentic Kenyan cuisine served by a true professional. Moreover Mrs Jane welcomes you warmly and ensures all your needs are met. Thank you.

My mother and I ate here and our expectations were wildly exceeded by the flavor and quality of the food. We loved every dish we ordered as well as the reasonable prices. The service was not fast (~1 hour for food) but we were in no hurry. This is a wonderful place to come for a relaxed dinner, but not for anyone on a schedule. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming and I look forward to the next meal I can eat here.

Great experience, and friendly owner. She took time to offer recommendations and also offered me a sample of their ginger drink. My favorite part of my meal was the greens. will I return? absolutely.

I totally enjoyed the food and I liked that there was free parking available. The ambience offered customers the opportunity to experience a bit of East Africa. Food was affordable and the server was courteous. I recommend this restaurant if you are considering trying out Kenyan food. Good for dates or group dinners.

One of the best Kenyan food I've had in a long time. Everything tested amazing. The service was slow but the food was worth it

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Safari Njema Restaurant

5041 Rainier Ave S, Seattle , Washington 98118 USA

• Independent
• Credit Cards Accepted
• Not Wheelchair Accessible
• More in Seattle

Learn more about this business on Yelp .

Reviewed by S T.

I had the curried chicken, cabbage, chapati and ugali. Everything I tried was amazing. The chicken was so tender and flavorful. Can't wait to go back and try the curried goat and samosas. The... Read more

Reviewed by Dana T.

Food is amazing amazing amazing. I always end up getting the fried fish. It comes with two sides that you can choose from, my favorites are the pilau and collard greens. Ugali is fun for a... Read more

Reviewed by Lawrence L.

Another Columbia City gem. Safari has a decent range of choices, and the chef said she'd make some vegetarian curry for me next time. Delicately seasoned with a decent hot sauce on the side. The... Read more

View 252 reviews on

• Sun - Sat: 2:00 pm - 10:00 pm

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Safari Njema Restaurant (5041 Rainier Ave S, Seattle)

5.0 x (10) • 677.3 mi • Black-owned • African • West African • Info

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5041 Rainier Ave S Ste 107

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" Kenya cuisine "

" Perfect "

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Seattle, WA

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Open until 8:30 PM

Featured items

$3.64 • Thumb up outline  100% (3)

• Beef Samosa $3.64 • Thumb up outline  100% (3) Fried filled with savory mince meat and spices.
• Veggie Samosa $3.12 Fried filled with savory mixed vegetables and spices.
• Bhajia $6.24 Thinly sliced potatoes coated in savory batter and fried.
• Fried Potatoes $8.32 Fried potatoes with flavorful seasoning.
• Goat $23.92 Popular
• Add To Lunch Special Chicken Or Matumbo $7.28
• Kuku (Chicken) $18.72 Dry-fry by default. Stewed or curried for $2.99 extra.
• Samaki (Fish) $22.36 Deep-fried by default. Can be steamed. Wet fry for $2.99 extra. Popular
• Matumbo $18.38
• Mbuzi (Goat) $20.80 Dry fry by default. Stewed or curried for $2.99 extra.
• Lunch Special $11.44
• Ng'ombe (Beef) $20.80 Dry-fry by default. Stewed or curried for $2.99 extra.
• Vegetarian Meal $18.72 Your choice of samba, pinto beans, black beans or githeri.
• Coconut Sauce (Extra) $2.00
• Hot Sauce $2.00 Habanero based hot sauce Popular
• Hot Sauce (Large) $13.52 12oz mason jar of habanero based hot sauce
• Hot Sauce (Small) $6.24 6oz jar of habanero based hot sauce
• Fish $12.48
• Chicken $10.40
• Beef $11.44

10 Ratings  • 

Kenya cuisine

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• Seattle, Washington /
• Safari Njema, 5041 Rainier Ave S suite 107 /

Safari Njema menu

Safari njema menu, menu added by users february 03, 2024.

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• Food & Drink

The best tilapia I’ve ever had is at Safari Njema Restaurant in Columbia City

Columbia City's Safari Njema Restaurant — and its owner and chef Jane Kagira — is a delight. Patrons travel from far and wide to taste her Kenyan dishes.

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To the casual passer-by, there is nothing terribly remarkable about Safari Njema Restaurant in Columbia City. Located in a small beige strip mall off Rainier Avenue South , it’d be easy to overlook if you weren’t looking for it. But you’d be missing out.

Beyond its modest storefront, it is quite remarkable, indeed. Safari Njema Restaurant’s owner and chef Jane Kagira , for one, is a delight. A vibrant woman with a knack for storytelling, Kagira is the type of person who will generously spend 40 minutes chatting with a reporter about her life and restaurant as the lunch rush ramps up on a busy Friday. And she is the catalyst for all the other nice things about the restaurant: its fabulous food (particularly the tilapia, her signature dish), its gravitational pull on diverse communities and its role as a space where people can feel at home.

A lot of hours go into this. She’s up at 7 each morning preparing for the day, then works from the time the restaurant opens at 11 a.m. until after 11 p.m., some days until 1 a.m., before heading home. Her one day off is Tuesday, when the restaurant is closed.

It’s tiring, but it’s a labor of love. Kagira, who grew up in Kenya working in her mom’s restaurant, said she had long hoped to have one of her own someday. So after working as a caregiver for many years in Washington, D.C., and Seattle, and feeling the ticking of the clock, she went to Le Cordon Bleu’s cooking academy in Tukwila, where she graduated in 2009. She found this space in Columbia City in 2010 and bought it, with financial help from a friend. After taking a few months to fix the place up, she opened up shop in May of that year.

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Now, patrons arrive from far and wide — some travel from Vancouver, B.C., specifically to eat at her restaurant, she said. She recalled one recent visitor from Amsterdam who arrived straight from the airport, luggage in hand, after happening upon her restaurant in a Google search. And, with the bright paintings by Kenyan artists and posters of Kenyan presidents (past and present, plus one with the Obamas, titled “Uhuru at White House”) on the walls, “w hen Kenyans come, especially those that are homesick, they say, ‘Oh my gosh, I feel like I’m just in Nairobi,’ ” she said.

All this is a lot to manage for one individual, of course. She’s run the restaurant with her husband and two of her three kids since it opened, and has also hired a few part-time employees. But even so, the long-term sustenance of the restaurant is up in the air.

“ I don’t know how long I can keep doing this, because I’m aging,” said Kagira, 56. “But at least, I’m wishing to have another four years.”

All the more reason to pay the restaurant a visit, stat.

The food:  The restaurant presents five main entrees to choose from: ngombe (beef), mbuzi (goat), kuku (chicken), samba (veggies) and samaki (tilapia), each of which comes with your choice of starch and veggie sides. Options include a fluffy pilau (basmati rice steamed with spices) that I could and would eat on its own; ugali, a white, soft cornmeal block meant to accompany the more flavorful dishes on your plate; chapati, a Kenyan flat bread (a bit drier and less greasy than the variety in Kenya, according to a dining companion who had lived in Nairobi for a period of time); and matoke, a starchy green banana dish in currylike sauce, Kagira’s personal favorite.

All are Kenyan dishes, and Kagira tries to keep them pretty true to the flavors back home — though she adds her own touch, having developed and taste-tested all the recipes herself.

Beyond the main dishes, there is a selection of appetizers, including madazi (Kenyan sweet bread) and samosas; various cakes for dessert; and a variety of nonalcoholic drinks (the restaurant is halal).

Don’t miss: The deep-fried tilapia was the crowd favorite in my dining group, and quite possibly the best tilapia I’ve ever had. The tender fish was encased in a crisp skin that was shockingly tart and tangy, a tantalizing zing to the taste buds with every bite. Only bones were left by the meal’s end.

The pace: Fast food, this is not — expect to earn your meal with patience. Our table waited about 45 minutes before our food arrived, but it was all worth it once we dug in. Our server was uber polite and courteous, though a little scattered, and forgot to get us our samosa order. That’s OK; we were, by then, fully stuffed.

Prices: Mbuzi with pilau and the sukuma mix (collard greens and spinach) ($10.99); samaki with ugali and matoke ($12.99); and four orders of chapati ($2 each) amounted to $31.98 before tax and tip, a steal for feeding four.

Safari Njema Restaurant

Kenyan ; 5041 Rainier Ave. S. (Columbia City), Seattle; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday and Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m.-10 p.m. Sunday, closed Tuesdays; 206-723-3058

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17 Top Eats Around South Seattle

Get on down south.

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Home to one of the most diverse zipcodes in the nation, Seattle's South End has a wealth of quality eats that are often overlooked in this town. Since the area is too rich to map in one fell swoop, we limited this list to the following boundaries: from I-90 to Renton (north/south), and from Beacon Hill to Lake Washington (west/east). Eater ventured south and also asked for your favorites to come up with the following recommendations, spanning pizza, Indian, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern, Kenyan, and more.

Got another favorite? Shout it out in the comments below so we can consider it for our next iteration.

P.S.: As we went at this, we ached to build a Georgetown map (not in range here), so stay tuned for that later this month.

-With contributions from Jay Friedman and Julia Wayne

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At the south end of the Vietnamese “strip” along MLK at the Othello Station light-rail stop, this humble hole-in-the-wall has a small number of tables waiting, a television typically blaring, and an owner likely whistling or singing. The sign outside says Bun Bo Hue, which is easily mistaken as the name of the restaurant, as it’s the signature dish and the one to get, inclusive of its gelatinous pork knuckle and earthy pork blood cakes. [Photo Credit: Jay Friedman]

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Michelin Guide announces the BEST restaurants in Moscow

Twins Garden brother chefs Ivan and Sergei Berezutsky receive two Michelin stars and a Michelin green star during a ceremony held at the Zaryadye Concert Hall to award Michelin stars to Moscow restaurants and chefs.

“Moscow has many stars, but no Michelin stars yet,” joked Sergei Sobyanin, the city’s mayor, at the opening ceremony of the Michelin edition of Moscow. The capital has great historical gastronomic roots. Merchants and noblemen laid down their last ruble to treat guests with dignity. In Soviet times, many traditions were lost and first-class restaurants turned into Soviet canteens. In the 1990s, Russia and Moscow began to catch up and hundreds of good restaurants appeared which surprised guests with the sophistication of their dishes. 

Moscow became the first city in the CIS with restaurants and cafes awarded with stars and other Michelin trophies, while Russia became the 33rd country in the world to join. 

Why is the guide coming to Russia now?   

According to Gwendal Poullennec, international director of Michelin guides, work on the Moscow guide started five years ago. Experts of the Guide visited restaurants anonymously and evaluated them according to international standards, analysing several criteria: quality of food, combination of flavors, chef’s skill, price and quality, regularity of restaurant’s work. The pandemic made a difference in the evaluation process and the announcement of the results. 

Gwendal Poullennec, international director of Michelin guides.

“This project was a challenge for all of us because of the pandemic, travel restrictions and event cancellations. But, we got it done in the end. We are happy to say that Moscow, as one of the cities for gastronomic tourism, has great prospects in terms of its development. The city certainly has its own culinary identity; many chefs work with local products, carefully preserving the culinary heritage of their region. The first Moscow edition will include 69 restaurants,” Gwendal Pullenek said at the guide’s presentation in Moscow on October 14. According to him, this is just the beginning, which should support the restaurant industry. 

Two Stars: The best of the best  

Two restaurants in Moscow have been awarded two Michelin stars. The award means that the restaurant is so good that it is worth visiting, even if it is not up your street (or fit your budget!). 

Ivan and Sergey Berezutsky, Twins Garden.

Two stars went to ‘Twins Garden’ restaurant, headed by brothers Ivan and Sergey Berezutsky. Twins Garden has won a number of international awards and in October it was ranked 30th on The World’s Best 50 Restaurants list. The brothers promote the symbiosis of science and nature and most of the products in the restaurant come from their farm. 

Fresh farm vegetable salad, Twins Garden.

The second restaurant in this category was ‘ARTEST - Chef’s Table’, a new (open since February 2021) fine dining restaurant by chef Artem Yestafiev and restaurateur Arkady Novikov.

Artem Yestafiev, Artest.

Estafiev recently moved to Moscow from St. Petersburg, but has already managed to win over the Moscow public with his approach to gastronomy. The chef pays special attention to local products, uses wild and rare mushrooms. Before joining ARTEST, he trained at the restaurant of French chef Alain Ducasse, whose establishments have been awarded Michelin stars more than once.  

One Star: It’s worth visiting!

Seven restaurants in the capital have been awarded one Michelin star. 

Among them: 

- ‘Selfie’, a restaurant of auteur cuisine headed by chef Anatoly Kazakov (one of the top 100 chefs in the international ‘The Best Chef Awards 2021’ ranking);

- ‘Beluga’ restaurant of Russian delicacies, where you can taste two dozen kinds of caviar, enjoy the stunning view of Red Square and indulge in the explosive menu by Chef Evgeny Vikentyev;

Evgeny Vikentyev, Beluga.

Beluga with black caviar of Siberian sturgeon, beets and rose, Beluga.

- ‘Grand Cru’ restaurant and winery by Patriarch’s Ponds with David Emmerle at the helm;

- ‘White Rabbit’ restaurant in the center of Moscow with chef Vladimir Mukhin and his innovative approach to Russian cuisine (No. 25 on ‘The World’s Best 50 Restaurants’ ranking);

Vladimir Mukhin, White Rabbit.

White Rabbit.

- ‘Biologie’ gastro bistro with its careful attitude to nature and Ekaterina Alekhina at the head of the kitchen;

Ekaterina Alekhina, Biologie.

- ‘Sakhalin’ restaurant, with its amazing variety of seafood and run by chef Alexey Kogai;

- ‘Savva’ restaurant in the historic building of the ‘Metropol’ hotel in the center of Moscow (run by Andrey Shmakov ). 

Andrey Shmakov, Savva restaurant.

Savva restaurant.

Green Stars  

The Michelin Guide gives this award to the restaurants that care about conscious consumption, the reduction of food waste and take into account seasonality. The restaurants Biologie (chef - Ekaterina Alekhina), Twins Garden (Berezutsky brothers) and the northern cuisine restaurant ‘Bjorn’ (Nikita Poderyagin) in Moscow all received a Michelin Green Star. 

Good food for reasonable money  

Fifteen restaurants made the BIB Gourmand list, where you can have a delicious meal for 2,000 rubles (approx. $28). Among them are ‘Sevicheria’, ‘Delicatessen’, ‘Bjorn’, ‘Eva’, ‘Erwin.RekaMoreOkean’, ‘Flor’, ‘Geraldine’, ‘Hibiki’, ‘Kazbek’, ‘Lucky Izakaya bar’, ‘Rybtorg’, ‘Tilda’, ‘Ugolek’, ‘Vani’ and ‘Uilliams’. 

Another 45 restaurants also made the Michelin Guide’s list of recommendations. 

READ MORE: Just how good is Russian food? Our readers answer

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