Ethnic Eats – Sampling the World’s Cuisine Without Leaving Vancouver

Photos courtesy of Harambe. 

Even more amazing than the side-by-side Starbucks on Robson Street is the fact that two Ethiopian restaurants are operating within a block of each other on Commercial Drive. At least I think it’s amazing. I had no idea there was such a demand for Ethiopian food. And good thing too, because my good friend and new roommate had planned to meet up at the Addis Cafe (the one we had both been to before), but when we got there and it was closed we still had a spare and headed down to Harambe just a little bit farther down.

Entering the brightly painted room with arches and windows cut into walls, we were ushered to a section of low tables and chairs by a waitress whose smile exuded warmth and welcome. The section we were in seems to be the traditional Ethiopian area, with heavy furniture intricately carved out of a dark wood and covered in gorgeous tapestries. Hand drums were piled in the corner behind us, waiting for someone who knew how to play them. I would highly recommend sitting there (as opposed to the regular sized, “boring” tables), unless you are a giant in which case it might not be that comfortable.

The service was very slow – rather surprising since there were not that many tables – but the pace served more to transport us to another place than to irritate. Besides, by the time the food arrived we definitely appreciated it.

Ethiopian food is served (as above) on a large plate of Injera bread with various saucy stews (called wats) dabbed on top. The bread is an iron-rich staple of Ethiopia and Eritrea and the wats range from popular doro wat (chicken breast in a Berberie spicy sauce) to yebeg tibs (lamb stew in jalapeno and rosemary sauce with spiced butter). There are also a number of vegetarian options, thanks to the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian church specifying up to 200 fasting days per year. We ordered the Chef’s combo platter for 2 ($12 per person) which was a very filling dish consisting of doro wat, yebeg wat (lamb in spicy Berberie sauce and served with Ethiopian cottage cheese), and assorted vegetarian lentil and spinach stews.

To eat it you rip off a piece of bread and wrap the stew in it; there are no utensils. Harambe‘s website offers this step-by-step guide to eating Ethiopian:

Traditional Way of Eating Injera:
step 1 Tear a piece of Injera off the side of the large piece laying on your plate.
step 2 Hold the piece of Injera that you tore flat in your hand.
step 3 Put the piece of Injera over your choice of wat (sauce).
step 4 Grab and hold some wat (sauce) with the injera.
step 5 Enjoy the whole scoop or ‘gursha’ (putting food in someone else’s mouth)

We didn’t try ‘gursha’, but we did order some Ethiopian chai tea (shai) which, we learned quickly, is not like regular chai at all. For starters, the water is spiced first and then an herbal tea bag (with very little flavour) is added to it. When the lovely waitress brought it to us on the tray, we were looked at the weedy tea and spicy water and said, “we ordered chai” and she said, “this is chai.” Seeing that we were obviously at some kind of impasse, she added helpfully, “it’s Ethiopian chai.” And so it was. It was interesting, but probably the coffee would have been a better choice, as it occurred to me later that I love Ethiopian Harrar coffee.

I’m so glad that Addis Cafe was closed or we probably would have never ventured down to check out Harambe. Now, of course I want to go back to Harambe, but I also want to try Addis again so I can see what’s unique about each one.

_______________________________________

Harambe
2149 Commercial Drive, Vancouver