Out of Africa

Plus: Hummus, Baba . . . and Injera? Ethiopian meets Middle Eastern at Green Village. Plus: other Ethiopian picks

Addis Abeba
1322 Chicago, Evanston | 847-328-5411

$$
African | Lunch, dinner: seven days

We eat Ethiopian regularly down in Edgewater, so perhaps our expectations were too high. But this place was mediocre at best—nothing particularly wrong, but certainly nothing right. The lentils and peas seemed undercooked in our two vegetarian combo meals, but even more disappointing was the seasoning: I can’t think of any other way to explain it other than to call it canned tasting, the flavors one-dimensional. We ate almost everything and definitely left full, but we both decided that we wouldn’t return, particularly with other good options (Ethiopian Diamond, Ras Dashen). Service here is on the slow side. —Meghan A. Burke, Rater

African Harambee
7537 N. Clark | 773-764-2200

$$
African | Lunch friday-sunday; dinner: seven days | Reservations accepted for large groups only

Harambee, the motto of Kenya, means “pulling together,” and at this far-north-side pan-African restaurant, owner Sisay Abebe pulls together dishes from all over the continent. We started with African Summer Rolls (the only appetizer apart from soup or salad), cigar-shaped egg-roll skins stuffed with mildly spiced beef. Moving on to the meat portion of the menu (there are also seafood and vegetarian sections), we opted for the jollof rice, a dish called “spinach meat” (beef, lamb, or chicken with potatoes, carrots, and spinach in a tahini sauce), and the sleeper hit of the evening, a delicious dried fruit curry with lamb. Entrees come with your choice of rice, couscous, injera, chapati, or ugali, a cornmeal mush common in East Africa. There are African beers and wines to try, and service couldn’t have been more welcoming. —Kate Schmidt

Bolat African Cuisine
3346 N. Clark | 773-665-1100

F 6.1 S 5.6 A 5.2 | $ (5 reports)
African | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: every night till 11:30

Amala (ground yam, purple and glutinous), fufu (beaten yam or cassava, white and firm), and kenkey (fermented maize) are integral to Ghanaian and Nigerian meals. Big as softballs, these doughy dumplings are to be ripped, shaped into small scoops, and used as eating utensils for stews and soups. We had egusi stew, clumps of ground watermelon seed in tomato-spinach sauce, and ewedo soup, goat in whipped jute leaves, herbaceous and gooey. My partner had spicy fish and jollof rice with a deep smokiness that comes from letting the rice burn just enough. Palm wine, served in gourds, is salty, sour, and surprisingly complementary to saucy main courses. —David Hammond

Couscous
1445 W. Taylor | 312-226-2408

$$
Moroccan, African | Lunch: Monday-Saturday; Dinner: seven days

Italians have always had a thing for North Africa, so it’s no surprise that Couscous does a good business in Chicago’s Little Italy. There’s a lot of lamb to like here: it’s served stewed, ground, cubed, skewered, and baked, and being old-school, with fat, funk, and more flavor than leaner breeds, it’s generally quite tasty. Tagines are light, soufflelike mounds of meat, egg, cheese, and vegetables; the couscous is savory and loaded with veggies and chile peppers hotter than you typically find at other North African places in Chicago. Unfortunately, falafel, brika (pastry-encased mashed potato and egg), and other fried items seemed to have been made hours before and reheated—it’s probably best to go with one of the lush stews. There’s a lot on this menu to make vegetarians happy, and I enjoyed unidentifiable hunks of exotic squash in my Maghreb-style couscous. The lemonade, billed as homemade, didn’t seem to be, but thick, sweet Turkish coffee, rich with cardamom, was spectacular. —David Hammond

Couscous House
4626 W. Lawrence | 773-777-9801

$$
Moroccan | Dinner: monday-saturday | closed sunday

Hadja Zohra, the mother of one of the partners of this Algerian restaurant in Mayfair, keeps watch over the kitchen, maintaining quality control on the small menu of couscous plates, kebabs, and mezes. A heaping plate of the fluffy steamed semolina arrives with carrots, potatoes, squash, zucchini, and lamb or chicken, along with an accompanying bowl of the cinnamony red gravy merka. There’s also a different tagine special each day, incorporating chicken and olives or some other preparation. Simple, minimal, and decent enough, this place has been nearly empty each time I’ve been by—it deserves some love. Note: while the restaurant is normally BYO, alcohol is prohibited for the month of Ramadan, in September. —Mike Sula

Demera
4801 N. Broadway | 773-334-8787

$$
African | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Friday & Saturday till 11

“Would you like something to drink?” asked the sweet-faced waitress. “Ethiopian beer, or some honey wine?” The wine, a goblet filled to the rim with sweet mead, was delicious. If only she had asked 20 minutes earlier—like, before we had ordered. This sort of ultimately inoffensive disorganization was typical of our dinner at Demera, the Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurant across from the Green Mill. Menus were slow to appear, actual food even slower, but the array of Ethiopian wats (stews) was creative and tasty, perhaps a notch above the neighborhood standard, Ethiopian Diamond up the street. The extensive menu features a wide range of traditional preparations of lamb, chicken, beef, and seafood, but we opted for the diners’ choice vegetarian combo with a side of doro wat: two chicken drumsticks served with a hard-boiled egg in a thick, fiery berbere sauce. Presented on a platter lined with deliciously sour injera, the veggies included gomen (collard greens) and tikel gomen (cabbage and carrots) served with fresh green pepper; shiro, a mild mix of legumes, ginger, rue seed, bishop’s weed, and garlic; and the house specialty, ye selit fitfit, a fluffy pile of injera bits flavored with roasted sesame, garlic, onions, and ginger. Hung with African art and set around the perimeter with little woven tables for two, the two rooms are warm and cheery. And there’s an upside to the hit-or-miss service: you can linger as long as you want. —Martha Bayne

Ethiopian Diamond
6120 N. Broadway | 773-338-6100

F 8.0 | S 6.9 | A 6.7 | $ (11 reports)
African | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Friday & Saturday till 11

rrr At this large, shabby-comfortable Edgewater storefront there are savory wats with beef, chicken, lamb, and fish, but vegetarians never need feel deprived. Vegan options include a spicy red lentil wat, yellow split pea wat, gomen, slightly sour tikil gomen, and a mild wat made with potatoes and large chunks of carrot, all served on injera. For appetizers there are sambusas, samosalike pastry triangles stuffed with meat or vegetables and served with lemon and a tamarind sauce. Meat dishes include the classic doro wat; kitfo, described on the menu as “Ethiopian steak tartare”; and tibs, cubes of various meats or seafood available in a range of spice levels. There are African beers, served in frosty mugs, and tej, Ethiopian honey wine; service too is honeyed. —Kate Schmidt

Grace African Restaurant
4409 N. Broadway | 773-271-6000

$
African | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Reservations not accepted | Cash only

Grace African Restaurant looks less like a dining establishment than it does just a roomful of guys hanging out, arguing good-naturedly and occasionally shouting “Fix this man some nice food!” toward the kitchen. Each of the nine entrees, which include boiled yams or plantains with spinach stew and amala (dry yam) with okra, costs $8. The jollof rice with fish and meat stew consists of a very full plate of rice, spicy tomato-based stew over spaghetti noodles, sweet and heavy fried plantains, bony fried fish, and a shelled hard-boiled egg. Many customers eat the traditional Ghanaian way (i.e., with their right hands) and receive, along with their food, a bowl of water for washing up. —Anne Ford

Mama Desta’s Red Sea
3216 N. Clark | 773-935-7561

F 6.8 | S 5.6 | A 4.0 | $ (5 reports)
African | Dinner: seven days

The standout dish on our injera-lined platter was the zighni, ground flank steak with onion, cumin, cardamom, and a whole lot of spicy red berbere sauce. I tend to find meat dishes at Ethiopian places overcooked and chewy—the yebeg (lamb) and doro alitchas (mild chicken stew) here were no exception—but I’ve found a favorite in zighni, which reminded me of Pakistani kheema. On the vegetable side, the metin shuro wat, a peppery, garlicky mash of yellow split peas, ­was a hit. I asked for a tasting portion of the yasa wat, chunks of whitefish fried in onions, garlic, and berbere, and was genially offered a whole dish’s worth on the house. We’d started with azzifah, a tangy, souplike dip of green beans and lentils with little tortilla squares for dipping, and ended with a dessert called Red Sea Cream, described on the menu as creamy pudding topped with honey and raspberry but tasting like sour cream topped with frozen raspberries. The tej, honey wine, was sweet enough to compensate though. —Tasneem Paghdiwala

Palace Gate
4548 N. Magnolia | 773-769-1793

$$
African | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Cash only | BYO

Palace Gate, Chicago’s only all-Ghanaian eatery, is nothing if not authentic. While waiting for my food, the powerful tag-team smell of palm oil and dried fish brought me right back to that country. Hi-life tunes playing on the stereo and genuine Ghanaian hospitality served to strengthen the illusion. At the core of the cuisine are ampesi, intensely flavored stews or soups eaten with a starchy side like fufu, a firm, starchy dumpling made from plantains or cocoyam. Tomatoes, chile peppers, onions, and palm oil are the base for many stews, to which anything from turkey to beef to fish can be added. Jollof, spicy Ghanaian fried rice, is served with your choice of long-stewed beef or fried fish. Side dishes like plantains and beans help to round out the meal and extinguish the fire in your mouth. On weekends there are specials such as omo tuo (rice dumplings) and konkonte (dried cassava dumplings). There are no prices listed on the menu, and therefore no indication as to how much food you’re ordering. Be assured that the portions are massive (fufu as big as your head!), and nearly all the dishes are a reasonable $10. —Kristina Meyer

Ras Dashen Ethiopian Restaurant
5846 N. Broadway | 773-506-9601

F 7.3 | S 6.9 | A 6.4 | $ (9 reports)
African | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Every night till 11

The chef at Ras Dashen, Zenash Beyene, sets a welcoming table for carnivores and vegetarians alike. Here’s the drill: wash hands (your primary eating utensils) and grab a mossab (short, colorful eating tables of woven fiber), then order an entree (meat, fish, or veg) and sides (such as mashed lentils, turmeric-spiked cabbage, and garlicky spinach) that go on top of spongy injera. Unlike more stewlike mixtures we’ve enjoyed at other Ethiopian restaurants, here grilled meats stand out: lamb seared to scrumptious caramelization, fish crusted with light coconutty char, and beef dressed with piquant berbere sauce. The spice level on many menu items is rather mild, which enables you to savor fresh ingredients (like rosemary sprigs in the lamb). There are several African beers on offer—try Hakim, an Ethiopian stout with a creaminess that soothes the burn from hotter Ethiopian spices. Live music Wednesday and Friday nights. —David Hammond

Sunugal Restaurant
2051 E. 79th | 773-721-5600

$
African | Dinner: seven days | BYO

Sunugal’s menu sparks a double take with selections like fettuccine Alfredo and paella listed side by side with Jamaican ackee and salt fish. Best to put yourself in the hands of Senegalese owner Tidiane “TJohn” Soumare and say, “Please bring me whatever’s lookin’ good.” With that request, TJohn quickly laid out some crusty-charred chunks of lamb on a mound of white rice and shrimp in a light tomato-based sauce—flavorful and well priced though not terrifically distinctive. We had better luck with jerk chicken, savory morsels that delivered good chile burn with bursts of sweetness from golden bits of caramelized onion. Our grilled tilapia, moist and gently smoky, was complemented by cassava couscous (typical of southwestern Africa), and there were a number of traditional Senegalese platters coming out of the kitchen, including chicken Yassa and jollof rice. You’d do well to try the house-made drinks of ginger and sorrel, or perhaps milky bissap jus de bouye, derived from baobab. —David Hammond

Yassa African Caribbean Restaurant
716 E. 79th | 773-488-5599

$$
African, Caribbean | Lunch, dinner: seven days

Yassa is run by a family from Senegal, a former French colony whose cuisine, apart from fresh-baked pain française, bears little resemblance to anything European. We started with thiebu djen, a fish stewed in tomato with onion, cabbage, and jollof rice; the last is typically “broken” by soaking and pounding with the hands or the butt end of a bottle. Yassa is grilled marinated chicken covered with a sauce of mustard, onion, carrot, and palm oil and served on a bed of rice. Senegalese couscous is made from millet, which gives it a deep flavor that stands up to lamb and vegetables in a thick and creamy peanut sauce. Fish grilled whole over charcoal had a golden red, deliciously chewy crust and white, firm flesh; debe, grilled lamb chops, were also very flavorful. Bissap, a rich red liquor made from hisbiscus flowers, is a must-try. There’s also jerk and other Caribbean favorites on the menu. —David Hammond

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