May 17, 2022 - Food and Drink

Kenyan eatery in Austin wows

Asher Price

Food options from Kibanda — Food from The Kibanda — ng'ombe, top left, with collard greens and chapati; in foil, the rolex; and smoked sausage, bottom. Photo: Asher Price/Axios

Craving something different, we recently tried The Kibanda, a new Kenyan eatery operating out of GhostLine Kitchens, which is basically a stylish commissary deluxe off East Ben White Boulevard in Southeast Austin.

There's no table service at GhostLine — instead you order at a window, or online, and your food is presented at a pick-up window.

There are plenty of shaded picnic tables for dining.

Unexpected — and happy — marriages of flavors abound at The Kibanda. We ordered:

The rolex — a delicious Kenyan omelet stuffed with beef and cabbage, and rolled in a flaky chapati;
Smoked sausage topped with a fresh tomato and onion relish known as kachumbari;
And, the winner, ng'ombe — a tender beef stew, served with sukuma wiki — bright-tasting collard greens.

After the meal we caught up with Eva Bundi, the cook and proprietor, who grew up in central Kenya.

Back home, a kibanda is "basically a semi-permanent place where middle class and working class go to grab a good meal that is not expensive," she said — and that's the idea behind GhostLine. "It's good food without the frills of a fine-dining restaurant."
She moved to Austin toward the end of 2020, amid the tumult of the pandemic, after stints in Seattle and South Carolina.

"I toured Austin and fell in love with it and went back to South Carolina and moved here within a month."

The bottom line: "I realized there's no Kenyan restaurant and decided to go for it," she said.

Add Axios on Google

Kenyan eatery in Austin wows

More Austin stories