31 excellent under-the-radar metro Detroit restaurants

There’s a growing Dominican neighborhood in Detroit and Asty Time is evidence of it. Stop in for the super flavorful carne de res guisada, a dish of stewed beef that soaks in a small puddle sofrito sauce and falls apart with the slightest nudge from your fork, or camarones a la diabla, a piquant and spicy dish of shrimp in a tangle of sauteed bell pepper and onion with heat-radiating cayenne.

Al Chabab; 12930 W Warren Ave, Dearborn - There's no place in the world with climate and soil like that of Aleppo, Syria, and for that it's cuisine is one-of-a-kind. Check out the Aleppian kebabs, meat pies, kibbeh, and mohamara — a deep red, umami-rich Aleppian dish that could be mistaken for a form of hummus, but is actually a mix of Aleppo peppers, pomegranate, walnuts, Aleppo pistachios, olive oil, and spices.

Butcher's Grille & Market, 22713 Michigan Ave., Dearborn - Arguably the best burger in Detroit is made by the Lebanese meat masters at Butcher's Grille in Dearborn Heights. Owner Samer Saad's father started the Saad Wholesale Meats and Halal Distribution Co. in Eastern Market in 1975, so fresh meat is trucked out to Butcher's Grille, where it's ground and cut each morning.

Jamaican Pot; 14615 Eight Mile Rd, Detroit - Did you know there's a vibrant Jamaican food community in Detroit? One of its best restaurants is Jamaican Pot, where Mama Rose cooks up dishes like the brown stew chicken (pictured), jerk chicken, and other Jamaican masterpieces.

Bumbo's; 3001 Holbrook Ave, Hamtramck - Bumbo's is technically a pop up, but every Wednesday the small Hamtramck bar offers incredible Polish food with dishes you won't find elsewhere in Detroit. That means pierogi made with smoked potato, black currant, grilled onion, dill cream, or sardine salatka with marinated sardine, lemon-potato, red and green bell pepper, red onion, lumpfish roe aioli. A new menu is offered each week.

Pollos Los Gallos; 7135 Dix St, Detroit - Pollos Los Gallos smokes and barbecues whole birds on its huuuuge grills, chops them up, serves them with rice and beans and pickled veggies, and its one of the city's best meals. And it's a bargain, to boot.

Antonio's Coney Island; 2896 Washtenaw Ave., Ypsilanti - Honduran food is one of the world's most underrated cuisines, and there's no better place to find its stews, pupusas, and enchiladas that make it special than at Antonio's in Ypsilanti.

Kitchen Hanzo; 6073 Haggerty Rd., West Bloomfield Township - One of southeast Michigan's finest izakayas, which are essentially Japanese gastropubs. Check out of everything from Stamina Tofu, which includes ruby red tuna, fermented soybeans, and grated yams on a bed of tofu, to gyukimuchinikomi, beef and kimchi in a spicy red broth topped with egg.

King's Bakery; 4618 Greenfield Rd, Dearborn - It's hard to imagine making improvements to the classic shawarma, but King's did just that by adding a layer of cheese and wrapping it up in manoush, a Lebanaese flatbread. In short, King's makes delicious cheesy shawarma in better bread.

LoLo Potluck; 3950 Rochester Rd., Troy - Among LoLo's many amazing Egyptian dishes are koshary and mahshy, a common, colorful Egyptian plate that's similar to grape leaves. But LoLo replaces the grape leave wraps with cabbage, eggplant, or green pepper, and the result is incredible.

Kola Ultra Lounge; 32523 Northwestern Hwy., Farmington Hills - Metro Detroit's only full service Nigerian spot. Check out the moi moi, chicken suya, and edikang ikong.

Prince's Bakery; 10622 W. Warren Ave., Dearborn - The best place to start at this awesome Lebanese bakery is the sfeeha, a small, nearly pyramid-shaped pastry that cradles a big, red Lebanese meatball. Prince's packs the tender minced meat with plenty of sautéed onion, garlic, tomatoes, and a seven-spice blend of salt, black pepper, cardamom, and more.

Sterling's Old Style BBQ; 18241 Plymouth Rd., Detroit - The glorious pig fat of Sterling’s Detroit-style rib tips nearly melts in your mouth as the layers of rib tip meat — moist, tender, and pink from the smoke, or charred to a bark — fall apart. The tips are, in a word, decadent.

Trizest; 33170 Dequindre Rd., Sterling Heights - This incredible Chinese restaurant is serving some of metro Detroit's best Sichuan food. Check out the Perfume Fish with its mix of three varieties of hot peppers and mouth-numbing Sichuan berries. Or sample the bean curd and fish in pickled red pepper sauce, which is sour and spicy from fermented vegetables and Thai peppers, and is served in a pool of scarlet chili oil.

Karahi Korner; 27616 Middlebelt Rd., Farmington Hills - Karahi Korner is literally a hole in the wall in the back of an Indian grocery store but this is some of the best food under the metro Detroit sun. The chefs make a few dishes based on whatever they buy at the market each morning, so you never know what they have. But count on it being fresh and awesome.

Faustina's; 16155 Wyoming Ave., Detroit -Detroit is short on cajun and creole cooking. But this amazing, tiny carryout shop on Wyoming with jambalaya, cajun wings, and alligator bites on Wyoming is there for you.

Le Banh Mi; 29141 Dequindre Rd., ?Madison Heights - Beyond fantastic banh mi, the tiny Madison Heights restaurant offers dishes that you won't find at most metro Detroit Vietnamese restaurants, like xoi man, banhn chung, and bahn gio, of which the latter two are sometimes called "Vietnamese tamales."

Encuentro; 228 W Michigan Ave, Ypsilanti - In the garnachas (pictured), fresh tortillas holding moist ground beef are topped with two onion slices. Encuentro enlivens each with an orange, zesty sauce of pureed tomatoes, bell pepper, garlic, cilantro, olive oil, salt, and pepper. The "tomato sauce" is also what sets apart the tortilla de harina, a burrito-like sandwich rolled with tender, flavorful strips of beef and crunchy pickled cabbage.

Qahwah House; 6655 Schaefer Rd, Dearborn- Yemeni coffee is some of the world's best but it's difficult to find. Owner Ibrahim Alhasbani's family grew and supplied Yemeni coffee for hundreds of years, and he flies the beans directly from the family farm, which allows him to keep the price down.

Bella's Coffee House; 2303 Campbell St, Detroit - Bella's trades in Mexican soups and stews like menudo, the quintessentially Jaliscan birria de chivo (goat stew), beef barbecue, and red pork pozole.