Dining Out: No-frills grills at Suya Palace and African Grill turn out tasty, highly seasoned meat

Suya Palace
460 Bronson Ave., 613-619-4022, facebook.com/suyapalacegrill
Open: Tuesday to Friday 3 to 9 p.m., Saturday 3 to 10 p.m., Sunday 3 to 7:30 p.m., closed Monday
Prices: dishes up to $17.99
Access: step to front door

Suya Joint / African Grill
1383 Clyde Ave., 613-225-8584, africangrills.com , suya-joint.com
Open: Monday 3 to 9 p.m., Tuesday to Thursday noon to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday noon to midnight, Sunday 1 to 8 p.m.
Prices: up to $20 for dishes
Access: no steps to front door

In the real world, my travels to Africa have been scant. Decades ago, I was in Morocco for an afternoon. More recently, I spent a few days playing tourist in Cape Town and its surrounding winelands, which some say hardly represents the continent.

All that to say, these days I’m feeling I’ve had more revelatory encounters with the cultures of African countries during my visits to Ottawa restaurants that serve their national dishes.

Most recently, I’ve been eating and enjoying the meat-forward fare from Suya Palace in Centretown, which serves some key Nigerian dishes and especially the grilled items called, as you would guess, suya.

I’ve also visited — and been pleased by some dishes at — Suya Joint/African Grill, which is tucked away in a Clyde Avenue strip mall. There, a chef from Lesotho serves his version of suya, plus the barbecue style known as braai, which is native to South Africa, which happens to encircle Lesotho.

These modest eateries share a dedication to authentic flavours that rely on spices imported from Africa. The dishes I liked most, and even some that I cared less for, were well-seasoned and deeply savoury. It did seem that both restaurants had been discovered by African expats.

Suya Palace, which this spring replaced African Slow Food on Bronson Avenue near Gladstone Avenue, is a tiny place more geared to take-out orders, although it does seat about 10 people.

Best here were orders of chicken and beef suya. Both were beguilingly seasoned and tasty, although those with peanut allergies should know that peanuts are usually included in suya marinades.

The chicken was all bone-in, a thigh and two drumsticks, and it was sufficiently moist, if not juicy, after its time on Suya Palace’s charcoal grill. Beef suya was tender, if not moist. Goat suya was flavourful, but its toughness turned eating into exercise for our jaws.

At Suya Palace’s counter, there’s a small metal bin filled with orange powder. Although the cook that took your order already asked you how spicy you wanted your suya, he will still add a few spoonfuls of that orange powder, which turns out to be a made-in-Nigeria chilli powder that adds some fierce, persistent, swelling heat. Try some. It’s good. But don’t say you weren’t warned.

Less pleasing at Suya Palace was its suya-spiced grilled quarter chicken, only because its white meat was dry.

I can recommend Suya Palace’s jollof rice, a Nigerian side dish that was moist, tomato-y, well-seasoned and markedly smoky. If you order plantain here, the serving will be generous, but also very chunky and a little more firm than I like.

Several Nigerian soups complete Suya Palace’s wall-placard menu. Knowing next to nothing about it, I tried the ogbonna okra soup, and found I could not get past its mucilaginous sticky-slimy texture. Had I simply consulted Wikipedia first, I would have known better.

The restaurant is not licensed. Apart from basic soft drinks, it also offers vitamalt, the non-alcoholic Caribbean malt beverage. Its meat is halal.

At Suya Joint/African Grill, which opened late last year, chef-owner Koele Khutlang, a native of Lesotho, serves his take on suya, which presents its beef, goat, chicken and gizzards in smaller morsels, closer to the street-food roots of the dish.

The suya here is heavily seasoned due its marinating, and smoky, too. But it’s not as fiery as Suya Palace’s suya. Khutlang says his suya recipe is “90 per cent authentic. My suya is two countries mixed, Nigeria and Cameroon.” Best was the toothsome goat suya. Assorted suya, a sort of chef’s choice, included chewier bits of offal and firm, meaty gizzards.

The crowd-pleaser here was Khutlang’s braai, which he says he’s been working on for two decades. Chicken braai was rounded in flavour, markedly but not overpoweringly spiced, charbroiled and then glazed with a sweet-salty finish.

Khutlang notes that peanuts figure in his suya preparation, but not in his braai, and he says he runs his kitchen to try to isolate food that comes into contact with peanuts.

The fries here were very good, but the jollof rice was dry and a little bitter. Khutlang sometimes has moi moi, a savoury Nigerian bean pudding, available as a special. We ordered it and were counselled that it would be very spicy. It was not. But it was tasty, with a salty-fishy undertone.