“People like ethnic food,” says Mahamed Mahamud. “They like to try different things, and different spices.”

Owner of Three One Cafe on Lisbon Street since 2009, Mahamud starts each day at 5 a.m., beginning with a trip to Blackie’s Farm Stand in Auburn to pick up what he needs for fresh herbs and vegetables. Most of his menu items incorporate garlic, cilantro, mint and celery stalks.

He then opens up at 8 a.m. — just in time to serve breakfast — and later transitions into lunch, followed by dinner. His wife, Shukri, helps out on Saturdays.

There are quite a few things to like about Mahamud’s cooking. Many dishes are served with muufa, the Somali version of a thin pancake or flatbread. Because the flavor of the muufa is so mild and the texture light, it is rather difficult to believe the batter includes pureed garlic, cilantro, celery, onion, cumin and curry.

Two other simple items I fancied in particular were the spinach, onion and cabbage saute (a side dish to the chopped chicken or beef) and his Somali tea, a special concoction of tea leaves, “cardamom, cinnamon, ginger and a little bit of mint.” It might remind you of chai tea, and is, according to one customer, the best tea in town.

Somali cooking, in general, is meat based. It avoids pork, can include goat as an option, and often offers rice instead of potatoes. While indigenous ingredients, spices and methods form the basis of the cuisine, years of control by the English, French and Italians have also infused Somali food. Mahamud’s menu reflects those traditions, which ranges from roasted or curried goat to penne pasta with chicken or beef steak and spaghetti.

Local patron Abdi Matan gave the spaghetti rave reviews on a recent Tuesday evening. Mahamud makes his own spaghetti sauce from scratch, and when he adds goat pizza to the menu later this fall, he plans to make his own pizza sauce, too. There are also numerous sandwich options to choose from, including salmon. “Except for the rice,” he said, everything is homemade.”

He also makes up a “secret sauce,” he said, for grilling his meat; all I uncovered is that it starts with a roasted tomato base. Ask for it as a condiment if you aren’t partial to the pureed jalapeno sauce he typically serves with the meat entrees.

If it’s your first time at Three One Cafe, you might try what Mahamud has named the Partner Plate —“a sampler of everything on the menu.” Make sure you’re hungry, the serving size is hearty!

Mahamud has been cooking since he was very young. Before opening Three One Cafe, he worked at the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport and was later a cook at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center for four-and-a-half years. He is well-known for his sabuus, a traditional Somali appetizer, sometimes more commonly known as sambusa. He said sabuus are similar to what many people in Maine would call a meat pie, but instead of being baked in a round pie plate, the triangular shapes are made fresh with simple pastry dough and are fried until crispy. Mahamud offers either ground beef or vegetable varieties, flavored with cumin, garlic, cilantro and scallions. As part of his catering service, he said he is often called to deliver them to local professional meetings and conferences.

The menu is changed twice a year, once for summer, and then usually in November to usher in the winter months. During the winter, he will cook more soups and offers mango chicken, a restaurant specialty that also happens to be a favorite dish of his assistant, Max Gbetibouo. The summer menu leans toward lighter food, he said.

Breakfast items served at the cafe include scrambled eggs loaded with fresh vegetables, muufa topped with egg and cheese, and perhaps the best liver, onions and peppers I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. I believe it has all to do with that “secret sauce.”

When it comes to dessert, Mahamud keeps things simple and offers a very short list: Fried dough with honey.

The cheery yellow walls — home to a huge photographed menu and a multitude of small, decorative plaques — give the cafe an international, yet casual, feel.

To create a sense of community and inclusiveness, each time Mahamud meets a  new customer from a different country, he asks them to write down on paper in their native language “God bless Lewiston.” He then painstakingly copies by hand each blessing onto small wooden boards that he displays on the walls. He said Lewiston “is really like one nation.” Mahamud noted that the name Three One is a term that loosely represents “everybody who lives in our community.” For him, cooking for the whole community is both a goal and a pleasure.

Located at 259 Lisbon St., Lewiston, Three One Cafe is currently open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.to 5 p.m. Saturday, closed Sundays; fall hours will soon be extended to 9 p.m. A home delivery service is in the works.

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