Original Story Published by: Stacy Brooks for City Pages
Photography by: Alma Guzman
(Above) Bolé’s veggie sampler has a little bit of everything.
Thick lentil stews flavored with generous helpings of onions, garlic, and ginger. Tender, slow-cooked meats seasoned with warming spices. Spongy rounds of flatbread nearly two feet across, designed to sop up every last drop of sauce.
Ethiopian cuisine is the ultimate comfort food for a Minnesota winter—but a surprising number of Twin Citians are missing out on the delights of doro wat and injera.
“When we first opened in 2016, we served many people who had never eaten Ethiopian or Eritrean food before,” says Genet Ghebre, owner of Ghebre’s Restaurant in St. Paul. “I was surprised by how many people hadn’t tried it.”
The Twin Cities is home to one of the largest Ethiopian diaspora populations in the United States, and the region has a correspondingly vibrant dining scene. Fasika, Dilla’s Ethiopian Restaurant, and the Red Sea have earned their status as popular standbys; more recent additions worth visiting include Bolé Ethiopian Cuisine and Ghebre’s. The first thing newcomers to the cuisine will notice is that it’s eaten sans utensils. Instead, diners use pieces of injera—a spongy flatbread not dissimilar to a pancake—to pick up each bite.
“Think of the injera as a vehicle for the sauce,” says Solomon Haile, who co-owns Bolé Ethiopian Cuisine in St. Paul with his wife, Rekik Abaineh. The tangy bread is made with teff, a nutrient-dense whole grain, and it tastes somewhat sour on its own. But when rolled up with stews, that flavor is beautifully balanced out.
“Other African countries may have similar stews, but they are served over rice.” Abaineh explains. “The sauce and injera combination is unique to Ethiopia, and the well-combined flavors are also what makes the cuisine unique.”
Intimidated? There’s no need to be: The staff at Ghebre’s will be happy to provide a demonstration of how to eat with injera. “We bring out a little plate of food and show them how to do it. Customers pick it up easily—we appreciate their willingness to try new things,” says Ghebre. She adds that Americans aren’t exactly strangers to finger foods: Tacos share a similar flat-bread-wrapped-around-a-filling concept.
Ethiopian cuisine is particularly vegetarian-friendly, with lentils, split peas, and other vegetables playing a prominent role. That’s due to religious reasons: Nearly half of Ethiopia’s population belongs to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which requires laypeople to fast—abstaining from meat and dairy products—for about 180 days a year. “Because there is so much fasting, there is lots of variety in the vegetarian dishes so that people aren’t eating the same thing every day,” Abaineh explains.
Ready to sample some for yourself? Here’s a roundup of the Twin Cities’ top Ethiopian restaurants.
(Above) Bolé Ethiopian Cuisine
A relative newcomer, Bolé Ethiopian Cuisine opened in June 2017 and has a warm ambiance perfect for a cozy date night. One of the most popular dishes here is the authentic kitfo, a specialty of the Gurage tribe (of which co-owner Solomon Haile is a member). A flavorful mixture of ground beef, chili powder, and spiced butter, kitfo is traditionally served just slightly cooked—but diners can order it medium-rare or even well done if they prefer. Newbies to Ethiopian cuisine should check out the veggie roll, a Bolé invention: legume stew spread on injera, rolled up, and then sliced, sushi roll-style.
490 N. Syndicate St., St. Paul; 651-917-9332
