Malindi Dishes offers coastal Kenyan food in the middle of cool and sunny Nairobi. They specialise in Swahili dishes, from the flavourful and aromatic biryani to the spicy pilau, plus quite a spread of snacks and Swahili desserts.

Because of its location, the restaurant is pretty popular with lunchtime diners. It also helps that their price points and portion sizes are attractive. Malindi operates on a pseudo-self-service principle. One selects their meal, pays, then after a few minutes the waiter brings the meal to the table.

Their biryani and pilau are quite popular with guests and are normally gone by dinner time. They also serve various soft drinks from soda to juice. Their speciality is Ukwaju, which is the local version of tamarind juice. The somewhat bitter tamarind fruits are soaked in water to render their juice, which is then sweetened and served. This juice is a must-have while dining here.

Seeing that I went there for dinner, I unfortunately didn’t get to try the biryani. However, I had the chicken tikka, which was delicious. I had it with wali (steamed rice). Other than the vegetables portions being almost non-existent, the serving sizes were very generous.

There are a couple of downsides to Malindi. From the entry of the restaurant one can clearly tell that it has been in operation for quite some time. Plenty of work needs to be done to the establishment in matters of appearance and sanitation, especially in the washroom area. It would definitely benefit from an improvement of its sanitation and perhaps a change of location. But I would visit it again just to try the biryani.