Springbok in Van Nuys may seem like a regular sports bar, but look closer to find South African staples like chicken liver peri peri or prawns in pili pilisauce. There’s also a daily Durban curry special made from tomatoes and spices like cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves.

Mizlala took over Simon’s Café, an old standby for Moroccan cuisine in Sherman Oaks. In addition to modern Mediterranean fare, Mizlala owner Danny Elmaleh has retained some of his father’s iconic Moroccan dishes, including the apricot lamb tagine served with saffron rice. Mizlala recently opened a second location in West Adams.

Jaliz Cuisine, which mostly operates a catering business, also welcomes folks to dine in. There’s room to eat in the dining room or backyard, with most diners choosing from three proteins: goat, chicken, or fish. The protein is served as a soup next to a plate of matooke (mashed green plantains) topped with peanut sauce, jollof rice with fried goat meat, chapati bread (an Indian flatbread), and collard greens.

Oasis Mediterranean Cuisine on La Cienega serves a broad range of mediterranean cuisine, as well as a few popular Egyptian offerings like koshari, a dish made with rice, macaroni, and lentils in a tomato sauce with chickpeas and fried onions. Also of note is the ful medames—cooked fava beans served with bread, vegetable oil, and herbs, and the molokhiya, a soup of mallow leaves that dates back to ancient times.

Aduke African Cuisine on Pico Boulevard serves hard-to-find Nigerian dishes. On the menu is fufu, a dumpling made of mashed cassava, as well as its cousin amala, which is made of dried yam flour. Served alongside is ewedu, a soup made of jute leaves and meat or seafood. The most approachable dish is suya, grilled meat skewers seasoned with chili pepper, spices, and peanut powder. For the adventurous, Aduke serves igbin alata, sautéed snails in a spicy tomato sauce.

All of the restaurant’s dishes, meat and vegetable stews called wot and stir-fried dishes called tibs, are centered around injera (a spongy and subtly sour flatbread made of fermented teff flour) and a spice mixture called berbere. Don’t come to Meals by Genet without ordering chef Genet Agonafer’s doro wot (chicken stew), which takes three days to make.

Taste of Senegal is hidden inside a small convenience store in Little Ethiopia, with just four tables tucked in the back. Most start their meal with nems, egg rolls that are a popular street food due to Vietnamese immigrants. Thiéboudienne, the national dish of fish and jollof rice, is reminiscent of Southern creole cuisine. Another crowd pleaser is the chicken maafe, which is cooked in a creamy peanut butter and tomato sauce.

Banadir in Inglewood, the only Somali restaurant in LA, is a hub for the area’s Somali community. For breakfast, there’s anjera, a fermented sorghum flour pancake similar to Ethiopian injera. The anjera is served with chicken suqar, a type of stir-fry. For lunch and dinner, find large rice platters with choice of meat (goat, chicken, or fish). Both rice and spaghetti meals are served with bananas meant to be eaten with the meal.