Conscious Choice: Grandma in the Sky with Diamonds

January 2002 | Conscious Dining

Grandma in the Sky with Diamonds

by Ethel Hammer and Stephen Kleiman

Ethiopian Diamond African and Vegetarian Restaurant and Lounge is clearly an escapade in dining, where smiling service offers hints of intriguing folk ways. "I learned to cook from my grandmother back home and really wanted to cook like her. When I came here, I was sixteen and couldn’t eat anything. I was very skinny and kept cooking and practicing until my food tasted like hers," said chef and co-owner Almaz Yigizaw, whose first name means "diamond." Now deceased, Grandmother Tatye apparently had her own style of cooking and "didn’t like what other people cooked." To chef Almaz’s pride, most of the recipes are her grandmother’s. How Almaz succeeded in creating a restaurant is a testament to the motivating romance of childhood tastes.

With seating for over 170 — the restaurant spans 3,000 square feet — the Ethiopian Diamond is so deep that it could have been a bowling alley. Upon first entering, we tossed around like two bowling balls lost in space. There we were at our front table, pretending to be in Ethiopia, ready to indulge in what the menu declares to be the "Best African Restaurant and Best Vegetarian Food, as voted by the Residents and Businesses of Edgewater."

Primed for adventure, we embarked on a culinary tour of the Gonder region by first ordering some Ethiopian tea — a mixture of cinnamon, dried ginger, and the mysterious "krumfood." The pot arrived, accompanied by two glasses (not cups). This was our grandmothers’ style, too.

Having whetted our whistles, we surveyed the appetizers. They were all sambusas, deep-fried dough filled with chicken, beef, shredded shrimp, or three vegetarian choices. Before we had time to clink our glasses together three times, we crunched down into delectable triangles of potato and carrot and found them delightfully tangy when spritzed with lemon.

Meanwhile, the front room started to fill with other, clearly non-Ethiopian diners — while the friendly attentive staff made every effort to keep things festive. The walls are covered in murals depicting Ethiopian history. The décor also features white tablecloths under glass tops, embroidered table runners, little red candles, and flowers. Still, for a time it seemed as if nothing could fill up this cavernous space, with its military looking olive drab carpet. And then we discovered the Ethiopian wheat bread.

Injera, a spongy yeast bread that doubles as silverware, turned out to have expansive powers. Flat on one side, with bubbly holes on the other, Ethiopian Diamond’s bread is fermented for five to six days until all the water evaporates. For some reason, though, ours was still moist, and it swelled up inside us like party balloons — but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Licking our fingertips from the dainty appetizers, we reeled at the choice of entrées. When everything is a mystery, it’s no small task deciding among three lamb dishes, six beef dishes, three chicken, five seafood, and nine vegetarian options with names like Yebeg Tibs, Gored Gored, and Yemiser Azifa.

Throwing caution to the wind, we got our first real stab at speaking Ethiopian and ordered the vegetarian Combo 4 with Yemisir Watt, Dinich Watt, Kik Alitcha, Gomen and salad, substituting Tikil Gomen for Yatakilt Watt. Our round platter arrived, decked out in pretty hills of red, yellow, and green posed upon an edible plate of four Injera. Requesting forks we were told, "No. Eat with fingers." Which loosely translated means "Use the Injera, silly." After all, there were extras in an adjacent bowl.

Tearing off snippets of bread — first from the bowl, later from the plate — we dibbed and dabbed, scooping up red lentils, bright yellow chickpeas, dark green collards, pale cabbage sparkling with carrots and a confetti of salad. "Do we eat these separately or in combination?" we asked. After all, if we were going to eat like babies, why not ask questions like babies, too?

The waiter acted charmed by our confusion (smart move) and instructed us to eat however we wished. When was the last time you mushed your fingers into squishy mounds? Do you have fantasies of using bits of bread as your shovel? Remembering when you were a kid, wasn’t rejecting spinach just as much fun as lapping up applesauce? All this is our way of saying that some of our little hills were tastier than others, but we hardly cared. After all, we were at Grandma’s where anything goes.

Still, being on duty, we paused from our bread-tearing extravaganza to note the following: Kik Alitcha is split chickpeas cooked in a mild sauce of onion, garlic, and ginger. It’s just the ticket for big kids ready to groove on little yellow peas. Yemiser Watt is a spicy red lentil stew, with a great kick, thanks to the homemade Diamond Sauce dancing with chili peppers, ginger, garlic, salt, and a complex blend of spices. Tickil Gomen mixes sliced cabbage (with a gassy, but delicious aftertaste) and julienne-style crunchy carrots. It’s a tasty palate tickler — yummy and oh so odd. Dinich Watt — potato cubes cooked in Diamond Sauce — scorched us, while Gomen Watt — a mild stew of collard greens — cooled us down. A chopped salad offered a refreshing mix of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and cucumber, with a taste of fennel even though it contained none.

Since the bread had not yet asserted itself, Stephen sampled a mild chicken dish (Doro Alitcha), which he found uneventful. When I asked him how it compared to his own grandmother’s boiled chicken, he just shrugged. It came with a hardboiled egg, however, which he loved. After all, he hadn’t had one of those since the Nixon administration. (As for me, my own grandmother used to embarrass me at the movies by offering me hardboiled eggs from a bag while other kids ate candy. I took a pass.)

For our final entrée, we urged our server to dump a little Shimbra Assa onto what remained of our raggedy tatter of batter. How could we miss what the menu announced as: "A unique vegetarian food prepared from chickpea dough cooked to taste like Fish Watt (Stew). Ethiopian Diamond is proud to be the first to introduce this authentic vegetarian dish to Chicago."

As it turned out, Shimbra Assa was Grandmother Tatye’s favorite dish, an age-old Lenten offering. We found it mighty fine with a hot zingy aftertaste that just kept vibrating. Truth be told, the dish did not taste like fish, but that was fine by us.

Our two desserts came on one plate and were powdered with sugar and drizzled with strawberry sauce. Sambrosa Selit is a nice, rolled, baked treat, filled with dates and topped with sesame seeds. Destaye — an original creation of chef Almaz and our favorite dish — is a fried dough triangle lovingly stuffed with cardamom and mixed nuts. (It’s delicious.) "I wanted to come up with something that represents Africa. We don’t really eat sweets in Ethiopia," Almaz said, proving nothing beats invention.

Unwilling to let any part of the experience lapse, we did the tour of the murals of Ethiopian landmarks and history — including Blue Nile Water Falls, Emperor Tewodros II, and The City of Axum with its obelisk to Queen of Sheba — thanks to our guide, Almaz’s smiling fiancé and co-owner, Sisay Abebe.

In fact, it occurred to us that perhaps Queen Sheba tempted more than a few courtiers with plates of Destaye and Sambrosa Selit, not to mention Buna Be Jebena, Ethiopian-style coffee served in a clay pot.

We were further enticed into thinking about the queen because of the illustrations of Ethiopian hairstyles that line a back corridor. Being lovers of personal adornment, we delighted in a dozen doe-eyed beauties, one with a fringed fantasy do with an imaginative topknot, others sporting braids and beads, demonstrating the elegance and beauty of the Ethiopian culture.

Meanwhile, dozens of Ethiopian diners politely celebrated a birthday in the back half of the restaurant amidst endless soft drinks and flying balloons. And, as we listened, an eleltha — that distinctly African yelp of bliss — rose up toward the ceiling. "Ahhh," we smiled. "Grandma in the Sky with Diamonds."

Ethiopian Diamond, 6120 N. Broadway, Chicago. Telephone: 773-338-6100. Appetizers and salads run $2.50 to $6.50; entrées $6.00 to $9.50; dinner combination plates (weekends only) $12.25 to $12.75; desserts $2.75 to $3.25. Winter hours: Monday through Thursday noon until 11:00 pm, Friday noon until 11:30 pm, Saturday and Sunday 10:00 am to 11:30 pm.

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