Thursday, May 2, 2024

Abugida Ethiopian Cafe & Restaurant Plaza Midwood, Charlotte, NC

ethiopian food charlotte nc

While not much to look at (it looks exactly how you'd expect a bunch of mashed beans to look), there's far more to it than meets the eye. Recipes vary with cooks and regions, but a typical example includes garlic, tomatoes, berbere (Ethiopian spice mix), ginger, turmeric, and cinnamon. Versions can be thick (rather like mashed potatoes) or runny like a sauce. Firfir is a popular breakfast dish made from leftover injera. Shreds of the flat bread are cooked in a simple sauce of berbere, onions, oil or butter and sometimes with scrambled eggs (enkulal firfir).

Dabbo firfir

The food was delicious, and their flavorful cheese dish was some of the best cheese we have ever tried... If you have not tried Ethiopian food, or experienced eating it, then you're in for a treat. I moved here from the Bay Area a while ago and at the time there was, may be one Ethiopian restaurant that I knew of in Charlotte. Now, we have a few to choose from, and Abugida has to be my favorite. Opt for betam leb leb (cooked) if the thought of nearly raw meat doesn’t appeal. Strips of chiken sauteed in onion,garlic,tomato,red pepper.

Fresh Ethiopian coffee

It’s a simple classic, cooked with red onions stir-fry style, accompanied with fresh greens and ever-present injera. Depending on how it’s garnished, it can be a mild or spicy dish. Heat things up with sliced fresh green chilli and plenty of berbere sauce.

SPRING SALAD MIX

The ceremony coffee comes with a burning of Frankincense which was very calming and relaxing. The coffee is strong, hot and very good, very much in the traditional Ethiopian style... If you're a vegetarian -– or an omnivore who wants something lighter to balance out a rich meat dish -– beyainatu is exactly what you need.

Some versions get an extra flavor boost from spiced butter, an Ethiopian pantry staple consisting of clarified butter simmered with spices such as coriander, cinnamon, and cloves. Pieces of injera soaked in spiced berbere sauce, cooked with fresh diced tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalapeno peppers, and Enat’s special spices. While this hearty dish is popular on fast days,  it's not seen as an abstemious dish by any means. Indeed, some variants –- such as tegabino shiro, which is thickened with flour and served still bubbling in a tiny clay pot –- are downright festive in their presentation. Shiro can also be served for breakfast, mixed with shredded injera (Ethiopian fermented flatbread) –- this makes the already hearty puree an even more fortifying way to start a busy day. For home cooks who want to try their hand at shiro, an easy shortcut to getting a super-smooth texture is to use chickpea flour instead of cooked, mashed chickpeas.

SIDE DISH

And while coffee has long been part of the Ethiopian landscape, it's never been taken for granted. The traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony –- which you can experience yourself if you find the right restaurant, even in the U.S. –- shows the culture's reverence for coffee. First, the serving table is scattered with fresh grass to evoke the outdoors. Next, the hostess lights a stick of incense before showing the guests a pan of green coffee beans, which she roasts over an open flame before grinding.

PASTA W/ MINCED MEAT

Because of its richness however, it's often served with other dishes such as minced spinach or alb, a crumbly cheese somewhat like cottage cheese. These extras offer a welcome contrast to the richness of the meat and make the already substantial dish into a full meal. Second, it gets its leavening (and spongy texture and uniquely tangy flavor) through fermentation, much like a sourdough.

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DEREK TIBS

Our vegan platter with your choice of one tibs (lamb, beef, chicken or mushroom) with one extra side. Some of our dishes use traditional ingredients so we’ve included a small dictionary at the bottom. At Enat Ethiopian Restaurant, we are dedicated to elevating the status and awareness of Ethiopian cuisine by fusing modern creativity with authentic delicious taste. The only thing better than our food is our impeccable service, through which we demonstrate warmth, professionalism, and integrity. Served in equally distinctive bottles called bereles, these small glass beakers give off a hint of middle school biology nostalgia.

Served with fresh diced onions, tomatoes, garlic and jalapeno peppers. Beef cubes slowly simmered in our traditional berbere sauce, onions, Ethiopian spices, and butter. Lean ground beef mixed with mitmita, spiced butter, ayib and peppers rolled with injera.

ethiopian food charlotte nc

From roadside shacks to high-end restaurants, you can find it all over Addis Ababa, but Fendika, known for its lively traditional music shows, is a city-wide favourite. Tere siga means raw meat in Amharic – and that’s pretty much all there is to it. More like a mead, its fermented honey is strong in flavour, with a sweet-malty taste. Often a home brew, tej can vary in strength, usually on the potent side.

If your new to Ethiopian food, they are more than happy to make suggestions and give you descriptions, for reference, it's predominantly vegetarian dishes. Everything was tasty and filling, especially for being vegetarian... Oranges and mangoes stacked in pyramids, crates of fresh, fist-sized avocados, bunch after bunch of dangling bananas – it’s hard to miss Ethiopia’s street-side juice bars. Stop by for a vitamin hit when you just can’t take any more coffee. Chunks of meat, fried in niter kibbeh (clarified butter) and served still sizzling – there’s no messing around with tibs. Combination of our vegan dishes; Red lentil, spilt peas, collard greens, cabbage and carrots.

As the foundation of almost all Ethiopian food, injera is bread, utensil and plate rolled into one. It’s a sour, tangy flatbread made from the super grain teff, which has a spongy texture, ideal for soaking up flavour. Meals often come served dolloped onto a large, circular injera, a colourful palette of delicious curry-like stews, fresh salads and sautéed vegetables. Your choice of protein, cooked with additional high heat to make it crispy.

ethiopian food charlotte nc

Siga wot (beef) and misir wot (lentils, a good option for vegetarians) are other common types to try. For good doro, drop in at Kategna, a trendy place in Bole known for its modern takes on traditional classics. A national favourite, it can be made from pretty much anything, but doro (chicken) is by far the most popular choice. Expect tons of heat – berbere, a tongue-tingling concoction of chilli powder, ginger, fenugreek, cardamom, garlic and other spices, is used heavily – and rich flavours. Minced beef tartare seasoned with mitmita, exotic spices, and Enat’s spiced butter, served with a side of ayib and gomen. The lentils (red and yellow), and cabbage dishes were by far my favorite and the most flavorful.

But this concept is far from new, and Ethiopian cooks have been implicitly following the principles of nose-to-tail cooking all along. A case in point is dulet, a hearty dish of multiple cuts of meat – including tripe, liver, and lean meat – cut into small pieces and cooked together with a flavorful mixture of butter, chile, cardamon, onions, and pepper. The contrasting textures, from the chewy tripe and creamy liver, combine with the spices into a tantalizing whole. Even if you're not a huge fan of organ meat, this deeply flavored, protein-rich dish might change your mind. If you're a hard-core carnivore and resent the way vegetables and sauce get in the way of your meat in stews or other preparations, tere siga needs to be on your radar the next time you go out for Ethiopian food. One of Ethiopia's many meatless specialties is shiro, a highly seasoned puree of chickpeas or other legumes.

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