There is a newer restaurant at the corner of Bloomington and Lake in Minneapolis. It is called Cafe Royale. I have been curious about this place for a short while and asked C if we could give it a try. It is a second location for this restaurant. The original location is in San Diego, CA. The server was really friendly and they had a highchair for Baby Willow.

We tried the Chicken Suqaar, Chicken Sweet and Sour, Mango Shakes, and a beef sambusa. Chicken Suqaar has the appearance of  fajitas in Mexican cuisine. It is made with Somali spices instead. I enjoyed it quite a bit. C had the Chicken Sweet and Sour. He said that he liked it. Both of us had our main entree with the Somali rice rather than the pasta. I am glad I did. The Somali rice uses Batsmati Rice with other flavorings. I am not quite sure what the pink/magenta colored stuff was in the rice. The salad part was just shredded lettuce with a creamy dressing. A sambusa is a somosa with meat fillings. It comes with a hot sauce that looks like a Greek taziki dressing, but it is very different. The server warned us that it was very hot, so we avoided it. The food was good and filling. The mango shake was definitely a dessert for me. It was very rich. We chose these meals after a gentle and understanding explanation from the server. The server knew that we liked the Blue Nile Restaurant (Ethiopian) and used that info to help us. Cafe Royale is a more affordable place than the Blue Nile.

It was nice to see this corner location open for business again after many month of being closed. The place was not cluttered and everyone seemed nice. It is worth a look.

Bye for now.

This location is now closed and is a new restaurant as of Fall 2017.