Aso Rock Market Offers Authentic African Groceries and Dining

An interesting and tasty experience awaits those willing to trek to North Dallas in a quest to expand one’s palate at the expense of one’s gas tank. Aso Rock Market, which opened in March 2021, sits in a nondescript strip mall on the corner of Midway and Frankford that is, yes, really and truly, within the Dallas city limits.

It’s fitting that a city as geographically large as Dallas has a market and eatery that claims a whole large continent as its inspiration; their “About Us” blurb states on their website states, “As a market, we operate within the African Food and Grocery space, offering produce and the best-branded products from across the African regions.”
This location, named for the Aso Rock formation in Nigeria, offers not only dry good groceries such as spices (asiko thyme), oils (akabanga chili oil), and grains (akanozo amasaka flour), but also has a fresh meat section, produce and a sizable frozen area of prepared food and/or perishables. They also have several varieties of bottled beverages, including their own branded natural spring water and sorrel juice. While not overly large at about three aisles of Afrocentric products, it offers a lot more than the local international aisle at our local national chain grocery store, where, at best, if we’re lucky there might be half of one shelf offering anything comparable to what Aso Rock Market has in plentiful amounts.

This location also has a kitchen and provides daily prepared food presented cafeteria-style at a hot bar, which they refer to as “the joint." All the varieties offered at the joint can be a bit overwhelming to those not familiar with African cuisine, but the staff is helpful by answering questions.

Some of the items include several types of rice: white, fried, and jollof (a Nigerian dish that has a smoky and spicy flavor in a light tomato base), as well as various proteins such as oxtail (when in season), tilapia, jerk chicken, stewed goat meat, beef suya (spicy Nigerian grilled meat skewers) and turkey gizzard.
Sides and pastries include moi moi (a sort of bean pudding), plantain, fried yam and meat pies. The selection changes daily, and often they run out quickly, so come early for either lunch or dinner. They also offer some locally made frozen items that are ready to make at home, such as fish soup.

Once you make your payment, they will provide plastic if you plan to eat in their dining area, but it seems most take it to-go. We ate in. This was an outing, after all, in the farthest reaches of North Dallas, and we wanted to soak it all in. The store’s soundtrack of Luther Vandross, Marvin Gaye, L.T.D. and Isaac Hayes sealed the deal. We split some jollof rice, fried rice, jerk chicken, and beef stew. The rice servings are huge.

The fried rice was slightly spicy and included little morsels of chicken, and the jollof was richly smoky. The beef was the sort that falls apart midway from plate to your mouth, always a good sign, full of flavor but mild. The chicken was not dry as is often the case with chicken awaiting purchase in a cafeteria; not too spicy, not too mild with a nice crust.

To wash all this down, we got a couple of bottles of Teem, what the server described to us as a bitter lemon-flavored carbonated beverage from Nigeria. It hit the spot, not too sweet, just the right amount of slight bitterness which somehow was a perfect complement to the various spice combos put forth by the food.

It would be worth a day trip to farthest North Dallas, and for those of us who live out here, it’s a welcome stop in a neighborhood often forgotten by Dallas proper. But for those who never venture north of 635, I guess you could check out their at 9220 Skillman St. … but why not live a little?

Aso Rock Market, 18110 Midway Road, Suite 208, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday - Saturday; 11 a..m. to 7 p.m. Sunday