Wednesday, September 2, 2009

I left my heart in San Francisco, part two

We had tickets for 1:00 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The timed entry scheme was due to two hugely popular special exhibits running simultaneously at the museum this summer. One is the Ansel Adams / Georgia O’Keefe show (did you know they were friends?). Good stuff, but the other exhibit was the one I really wanted to see. Richard Avedon. I love black and white portraiture, and Avedon was the master.

When I was living in Washington DC in the early1980s I had a great friend named Kelly. We both worked at Georgetown’s New Wave emporium, Commander Salamander. I was a self-styled prairie punk with cowboy boots, an orange and purple fauxhawk, and a thing for Willie Nelson. He was an ethereal blonde with great bone structure and a better style sense than anyone else I knew. When the Commander gave us time off from hawking pink hairspray to Amy Carter and her friends and punk accoutrements to touring rock performers (I once sold Prince a leather jacket), Kelly and I made a striking pair on urban excursions. We smoked a lot of Sobranies, danced to Martha and the Muffins at the 9:30 club, and marinated our angst in vodka tonics at Cagney’s on Dupont Circle. Ah, the life of the tragically hip.

For all his flamboyance, Kelly sheltered his secrets well, and I only saw his apartment on one occasion. We had been talking about the photo studio in San Francisco I’d worked in before moving to D.C, and how much I admired the work of Diane Arbus. Kelly said he wanted to show me something. He took me upstairs in a dingy apartment building to a tiny studio with a Murphy bed and a hotplate. And there on the wall above the dresser was a huge black and white photo of Kelly taken by Richard Avedon. Avedon had noticed Kelly when he was a teenager blowing though his inheritance by living high in New York’s Plaza Hotel. I don’t know what ever happened to Kelly, or his picture. I look for it in the indexes to Avedon books and on the walls of exhibits, but I never have seen it again.

One of the several things Kelly introduced me to in Washington was Ethiopian food. Late at night after work we used to drive in his gargantuan late-model Cadillac sedan from Georgetown up to Adams Morgan, to the Red Sea restaurant. We always ordered the kitfo – chopped raw beef in spiced butter, loaded with enough hot mitmita pepper to make your eyes water. We both thought it was the best food in the world. I remember Kelly’s solemn promise to find a way to mail me some when I moved back to San Francisco.

My taste for Ethiopian food has followed me everywhere. Now whenever our family goes to LA, the East Bay, or Portland we have to have an Ethiopian meal. After our Sunday at the museum, we went back across the bay to Oakland where the best Ethiopian food in the Bay area is located. We have several places we like, but there was a newcomer with us this time in the person of the intrepid Stephanie, and we wanted her to have a good impression. That meant we had to go to the friendliest, homiest one of the bunch, which has to be Ensarro on Grand Avenue.

When people ask what the Ethiopian cuisine is like I usually say that it is something like Indian, but without the curry powder. It sort of looks like Indian food, and the texture is similar (medium thick stews), with a lot of vegetarian choices; the spices are quite different however. The meal is served family style on one big platter with the various stews mounded separately on a giant round of injera. Injera is usually described as a spongy, sour “bread:” really more like a thick pancake cut into wide strips and rolled up. (Someone told me it made them think of “wet gray rags” – a comparison that stubbornly sticks in my brain, like the spinach-as-hair-in-a-drain metaphor offered by a fellow grad student in a foodways seminar. But don’t let that put you off). Anyway, everyone takes a roll of injera and tears off pieces to pick up the various stews and eat them. No utensils involved here, but you still need to mind your manners: etiquette requires you to eat with your right hand only.

The main types of dishes are wats (stews), tibs (small pieces of meat sauteed with onions), and various vegetable dishes including lentils, greens, and sometimes grains. I have never been to an Ethiopian restaurant that didn’t have helpful descriptions in the menu. There are many good choices for vegetarians but vegan options are limited: many of the vegetable dishes are made with niter kebbeh, a seasoned clarified butter. This ingredient probably won’t be listed in the dish descriptions so if you are a strict vegan you should ask before ordering; vegetable oil can sometimes be substituted. Also, many dishes are spicy, so if you are sensitive you will want to inquire about that as well (there are plenty of mild options).

I am still a great fan of kitfo, the raw beef dish. It is my absolute favorite and the primary criterion in evaluating an Ethiopian restaurant. If you want to try it, be sure to emphasize that you want it raw, not rare. We have learned that some places don’t expect non-Ethiopians to order it this way (although it is the correct and traditional way to make this dish) and so will automatically ask the kitchen to cook it slightly unless you make this clear to your server. Cooked kitfo is pointless. Don’t go there.

Most restaurants offer combination dinners. We have found that if you have fewer than 6 or 8 in the party that this is the best way to go. A meat combination usually gives you three small meat dishes for the platter, and a vegetarian combination gives you four vegetables. By ordering one each of the meat and vegetarian combinations plus an order of kitfo, a small party can get plenty of variety (eight items) and plenty of food to serve three or four people. It will all be served on the one platter, family style, the same as if you have ordered separately. For a larger group you might want to have each person choose an item for the platter, or still get the combinations plus some additional dishes for variety.

Last Sunday at Ensarro we ordered a bottle of tej, Ethiopian honey wine, to go with our meal. We were surprised to learn that the brand offered at Ensarro, Yamatt, is made locally in Oakland. It is sweet and amber-colored, with a light a taste of honey – we all enjoyed it very much. The food also goes well with beer; there are Ethiopian brands available.

I have to tell you that the proprietors at the family-owned Ensarro are lovely people. They will make you feel at home even when your husband insists on walking into the kitchen to meet the cook (it’s a Greek thing). We have not actually met the proprietors of Addis, but all of the other places listed below are recommended because of the both the delicious food and the charming and helpful staff.

Oakland
Enssaro 366 Grand Ave
Asmara 5020 Telegraph Ave
Addis 6100 Telegraph Ave

Los Angeles
Messob 1041 S Fairfax Ave

Portland
Dalo’s Kitchen 4134 N Vancouver Ave # 207

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