Best of 2003: Best New Ethnic Restaurant

Aswan African Restaurant
Helix Center
7404 University Avenue, La Mesa
619-464-7100

How many restaurants offer Somalian sambussas (a "best" in their own right) for the first course, followed by one of the world's finest Creole seafood gumbos? "Where the Mississippi Meets the Nile" is the motto here. Both sides of the menu are authentic -- longtime Somalian chef Maryam Suliman oversees the African dishes, the co-owner is gumbo king Vernon Sukumu, and a born-in-the-Quarter Crescent City dynamo handles the Louisiana end of the fare.