How do you decide where to eat?

Most tools hand you a ranked list of thirty restaurants, which moves the work rather than doing it. Savor Scout takes your craving and location and returns one restaurant, showing its match score, what it beat, and the evidence behind the pick.

Yes. Searching is free, no app download is required, and you can run one search without creating an account.

How is Savor Scout different from Google Maps or Yelp?

Maps and Yelp are directories that rank everything and leave the deciding to you. Savor Scout makes the call. It reads menus and reviews for the specific dish you asked about rather than ranking places by overall star average, and it shows its reasoning. Its place data comes from the same public sources, so the difference is the selection, not the data.

Savor Scout › Food guides › Somali food

How to find good Somali food

Somali food blends East African, Arabian, Indian and Italian influences — spiced rice, tender goat, pasta — and the restaurants, concentrated in Minneapolis, Columbus and Seattle, are cheap, generous and halal.

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What separates a good one from a bad one

Bariis that is aromatic — Spiced basmati rice with cardamom, cumin and cinnamon, often with raisins and onions. It is the base of most meals.
Goat that falls apart — Slow-cooked or roasted goat is the house speciality at many Somali restaurants.
A banana with the plate — Served on the side and eaten with the rice. Its presence means the plate is being served the Somali way.
Suqaar — Small pieces of meat sautéed with vegetables and spices. A quick, everyday dish that shows the kitchen's spicing.
Basbaas — Green chilli sauce. Should be fresh and sharp.

What to order

Goat with bariis — The classic plate.
Suqaar — With rice, pasta or chapati.
Sambusa — Fried pastries with meat.
Canjeero — Spongy flatbread for breakfast.
Shaah — Spiced tea.

How Savor Scout looks for it

The search reads for bariis, suqaar, goat, sambusa and Somali, and for reviews describing the restaurant as East African or halal, which is where Somali kitchens tend to be filed.

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Looking in a particular city?

Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.

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Related food guides

Ethiopian food, halal food, curry

When you might want this

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