Starlight Cafe - Minneapolis, MN

Midtown Global Market - Part 2

To continue our journey through the globe, our next destination was for African or more specifically Somali foods. Starlight Cafe is not so much a cafe or restaurant as it is a bakery with lots of sweet looking treats. However the bakery good we zoned in on was a savory Sambusi.

Sambusi ($1.34 including tax!) is a triangular shaped pastry consisting of ground beef and onion plus some other ingredients wrapped in an egg roll and fried.


I'm not sure what type of egg roll wrap they use but it is relatively delicate, having an airiness and hardier than a turnover. The ground beef has a small amount of heat with spices that my unsophisticated palate could not pinpoint but it tasted reminiscent of Middle Eastern foods.

The Sambusi didn't have me doing cartwheels but I did enjoy it. It just seemed to be missing something...a bit bland, maybe needing more spices that give it its unique flavor. Maybe it's a case where more has to be eaten to appreciate the subtle flavors.

Different? African food is not ubiquitous. Cheap? $1.34. Filling? It's a teaser, not an entree.

Scrooge Rating: Pull out the wallet, no ouch.