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Last week a university friend and I caught up over dinner at African Palace, an Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurant in the Bloorcourt neighbourhood of Toronto. It has been voted one of the Best Ethiopian Restaurants in Toronto in several publications over the past few years. The Bloorcourt neighbourhood itself is home to several Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurants, grocery stores, and clubs.
The main attractions are the platters of delicious and colourful stews. The large, round platters are covered with spongy, sourdough flatbread called injera that is made from teff, a grass seed. Different stews and salad are mounded on top of the injera, and you are given more injera on the side. Eating with your hands is customary, since there is no better way to eat the stews than enveloping a bite in a piece of injera. Tomiko and I are used to this way of eating, after growing up in Saudi Arabia and frequently eating Indian and Sri Lankan foods. As in all of these other countries, the right hand is used to eat, not the left.
Normally I order the vegetarian platter, which comes with several types of vegetable and lentil stews. However, since I always get an assortment, I didn’t know which name went with which stew! According to the menu and the conveniently colour-coded pictures, we had the yemisir wot made from red lentils, gomen wot made with spinach and carrot (the green), and a bubbling side portion of shiro wot, which is made with ground chickpeas (the reddish orange in the middle). Also included was tikil gomen, a yellow dish of cabbage and carrots cooked in turmeric; yekik alicha, yellow split peas cooked with onion, garlic, and turmeric (the yellow); azifa, green lentils cooked with onion, garlic, cumin, and turmeric (the dark greenish brown); and silsi, tomatoes, onion and garlic in berbere sauce (the red). The platter also came with a lightly dressed lettuce salad. All the stews were highly flavoured and tasty, but none were really spicy. I’ve heard from the meat-eaters, though, that some of the meat stews can be pretty fiery.
Obviously I need to learn the names of these dishes so I can look up recipes and try making the stews myself! The following are some common Ethiopian and Eritrean dishes and ingredients:
Wot – a stew that can be made wither various types of meat or vegetables and seasoned with spice mixtures such as berbere.
Tibs – meat sauteed with onion, tomato and peppers in awaze sauce
Kitfo – minced beef served raw with butter, cheese, and collard greens
Shiro wot – a wot stew made with ground chickpeas or broad bean meal. Delicious!
Berbere – a spice mixture that contains chili peppers, garlic, ginger, basil, korarima, rue, ajwain, nigella, fenugreek
Awaze – a spicy sauce made with berbere and a mix of various other ingredients that can include lime juice, whisky, salt, and olive oil.
It appears I have some shopping to do. Luckily, there are some Ethiopian and Eritrean grocers that where I can pick up the necessary spices!
Visit African Palace:
977 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M6H 1L8
(416) 588-7819
