New on Racecourse Road and hitting the spot for Somalis and all stripes of other Aussies, "hashtag" Somali Eats is an instantly appealing and persistently enjoyable cheap eat. It's small and unlicensed, not exactly a place to linger but with a smiling and solicitous welcome and good, fresh food. Unsurprisingly, there's already plenty of return custom since the restaurant opened in mid-September.

The owners are Amran Sean and her husband Abdi Mohamed, both of whom worked across the road at New Somali Kitchen, owned by Amran's brother. It seems there's plenty of room on broad, multicultural Racecourse Road for two Somali restaurants with similar menus.

Good Somali food relies on careful simplicity to coax humble ingredients to deliciousness. Influences are many, with Arab, Indian and Italian cuisine all sprinkling their magic over Somali dishes. 

Take the rice: oil is slowly infused with spices, then onions are softened in the fragrant slurry of cardamom, nutmeg, ginger, coriander, pepper and cinnamon. Extra-long basmati rice is coated in the golden mixture then vegetable stock is added to slowly swell the grains to glossy fluffiness.

Traditionally, lamb or goat stock would be used in the pilaf but the restaurant is mindful of local vegetarians. Instead, lamb broth is offered as a complimentary starter. It's so great, made with slow-cooked bones and brightened with lemon and pepper. I fancied I could feel the goodness seeping deep into my cells as I supped.

Main courses are a mix-and-match array with many of the same elements appearing on various platters featuring that lovely rice (or a "paleo" broccoli and cauliflower version) and spiced meats (chicken, fish or beef fillets or lamb on the bone) plus simple salads. 

The same array of proteins can also be ordered as a wrap in house-made flatbread, or as a topping for basto (pasta). Italian colonists left a love of spaghetti in their wake. It's par-cooked in water then finished off in a rich tomato sauce spiked with chilli, garlic and coriander.

Whatever you order, a banana will accompany it: it's traditional in Somalia to break up a banana and eat it with your dinner. Not before. Not after. With. This juxtaposition of sweet and savoury is a hallmark of the cuisine, seen also in the commingling of savoury sambusi with sweet mashmash (pancakes). 

The sambusi are pyramid-shaped fried pastries, filled with lean beef mince, seasoned with lemon, chilli and garlic. There's an art to getting the meat loose and moist but not so wet that it slumps out upon first bite. Amran says the meat should be "dancing inside the pastry" and she's learnt the proper technique from her mum, a much-admired expert who can make 300 pastries in half an hour. 

The mashmash are a flour, sugar and water patty, exceedingly simple in composition yet tricky to get right. The flour must be stirred for half an hour with lukewarm water, the sugar melted in, then the resulting pap formed into little pancakes. They're fried in oil and turn out golden, crunchy and chewy.

This is an alcohol-free zone but the spiced coffee and tea are intoxicating enough. The cardamom-scented coffee works beautifully in the Somali affogato, an African version of the caffeinated Italian dessert. 

If you like it sticky, try the xalwa, a sweet morass of corn flour cooked down for half a day with sugar, oil and spices. It's laborious to make and slow to eat too, because it's so glutinous and tacky. Like everything here, it's simple yet beguilingly good.

Rating: Three and a half stars (out of five)