Safari Bar and Grill -- Unique Recipes with a Flavour

Visited the Safari Bar and Grill in Pickering for dinner. I had passed that restaurant many times but never thought of visiting it until a friend praised its dishes.

They have an extensive selection of wine, and some interesting beers too. I went for the Austrian Stiegl beer.





Appetizer

They did not have Fresh PEI Steamed Mussels, so went for Chilli Garlic Shrimp. As promised we got black tiger shrimps, in a generous amount of spicy chilli garlic sauce, with home made kettle chips.



Main

Coconut Curry

Coconut Curry with Yukon Gold Potatoes, Carrots & Onions on a Bed of Jasmine Rice with Chicken.

The curry was thick and fresh. It tasted like a typical north Indian masala curry.

Creole Chicken

Creole-style free-range chicken.

This was the best of the two dishes. It was served with ‘dirty’ rice. Until now, I had not known that a dish called dirty rice existed but, thanks to this Wikipedia entry, found out that it is a dish native to the Cajun (Acadian) regions of southern Louisiana and Mississippi. It is made with white rice (hence the almost porridge-like consistency) chicken liver and vegetables. The chicken was a little bland, but it was well balanced by the spicy rice. What I also noticed was that the vegetables, like celery, were not mushy.



Dessert:

Banana cake with ice cream. It was fresh and warm. I liked the crunchy edges. As usual it is with most Canadian restaurants, the dessert was too much for one person.



Perhaps the best feature was the friendly service. Very chatty and even when they did not have the appetizer, they had a classy way of saying sorry.

I would like to go again.