Cafe Eritrea d'Afrique Review

as part of our Ethiopian crawl

Restaurant: Cafe Eritrea d'Afrique

Home Page: http://www.cafeeritrea.com/

Address: 4096 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, CA

Date Visited: Monday, July 10th, 2006

Number of Participants: 4, including Mark (add your name if you are comfortable doing so)

Summary Impression

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Cafe Eritrea d'Afrique served us food we generally enjoyed (but nothing I would rave about) in a drab setting and shady neighborhood. Generally the lamb and garbanzo beans were our favorites. Some dishes were bland, but we could tell they were intentionally so to act as a foil to the spicier ones. Our main complaint was the food and the injera were served lukewarm or colder and cooled down quickly. -mark

Food and Presentation

We oooohed when they brought out our platter of food. First, the platter was larger than any platter we were served before. And since part of our order was the vegetable sampler which included seven items alone, there was a kaleidoscope of colors of the platter. This was further accentuated by the fact that for those vegetable items, they split each into two at opposite side of the platter, thus making fourteen little piles! -mark

Many of the vegetable dishes were mild, likely intentionally so, but therefore fairly boring. -mark

All of these items (including the injera) were served luke-warm or unwarmed. We think some of these could be quite good and comparable with the best we've seen so far if only they were warm. :( -mark

Food Details: Kitfo (raw meat)

Description: "Tartar of finely chopped lean flank steak, mixed with seasoned butter, accompanied with home-made cottage cheese or yogurt." She asked whether we wanted it rare or cooked. We said rare. We also volunteered that we wanted it spicy. It arrived as an impressive pile of meat! It was served with crumbled cheese on the side (which we ignored).

Everyone seemed to agree that this kitfo, quite spicy, neither mushy nor dry, was the best of the three we've had so far (though I was a bit hesitant in making this claim). -mark

There was a spice shaker on the table that we think went with the kitfo. The very spicy powder, we believe was some mix of turmeric and ground hot peppers (of some form). Personally, I don't think it added anything to the kitfo, but didn't detract either. -mark

This was n's favorite dish; she should add something! -mark

Food Details: Lamb (Alicha)

Description: "Tender lamb chunks stir fried in mild curry with specially seasoned butter."

In general, the most agreed-upon favorite dish of the evening. -mark

Something felt non-Ethiopian about it for me. Not sure why. Still, I enjoyed it. -mark

Food Details: Yellow Lentils (Birsin)

A mild unremarkable dish that we think is meant to contrast with the spicier dishes. Not as good as Messob Ethiopian Restaurant's. -mark

Food Details: Collard Greens (Hamlee)

A mild unremarkable dish that we think is meant to contrast with the spicier dishes. Not as good as Cafe Colucci's. -mark

Food Details: Potatoes

Another a mild unremarkable dish. -mark

Food Details: Fava Beans (Shehan Phool)

I thought they were plain but n liked them. Perhaps she can articulate why? -mark

Food Details: Cabbage

Yet another a mild unremarkable dish. -mark

Food Details: Garbanzo Beans (Shiro)

My favorite vegetarian item and j's too if I remember correctly, mostly because it was a little more interesting than the rest. -mark

Food Details: Hummus

The hummus was very creamy and heavily flavored with garlic. So smooth and creamy, I almost wonder if there were measurable amounts of chickpeas involved. None of us enjoyed it. -mark

Food Details: Honey Wine

They make their own honey wine. The half-liter we ordered, delivered in a flask, was a pale orange color. Slightly sour, it tasted like a mix of orangeade and honey. It took concentration to taste the alcohol because the other flavors masked it; one could, however, smell it. None of us were that happy with it. n suggested one problem with the wine was that it was served prematurely -- the wine hadn't yet fermented enough and that was the cause of the lack of alcohol. -mark

Food Details: Salads provided on the platter

Decent. A salad of crisp lettuce, red onion slices, and tomato chunks. A bit more oily and salty than we'd prefer but still better than Messob Ethiopian Restaurant's, though not as good as Cafe Colucci's. -mark

Food Details: Injera

Plus: we got individual plates of injera.

Plus: they were ample, so we never needed to ask for more.

Major Minus: the injera was served room temperature.

-mark

Food Details: Coffee

They didn't appear to serve coffee. -mark

Food Details: Mixed Fruit Drink

o tried a mixed fruit drink that was fine, tasting entirely of milk and bananas with a touch of honey. -mark

Atmosphere & Decor

The neighborhood, not far from downtown Oakland, was a bit scary. People loitered. While standing on the sidewalk talking after dinner, we were hassled by someone who clearly wasn't mentally stable. (I couldn't understand what he was saying.) We ignored him and kept talking and he didn't seem to notice. -mark

The restaurant was divided between a dining room and a bar with a large screen television showing sports. It's a bit of contrast, but not as much as it could be given that neither the dining room nor the bar had any decorations for ambiance. Practically nothing was on the walls. The only Ethiopian touch I noticed was two photographs of food placed under the glass on the tabletop. -mark

Service

We felt service was a little slow, from a delay before getting a chance to order to a delay when getting the check delivered. Then we waited ages for them to pick up the check to run the credit cards but they never did. We had to give it to the desk directly. Maybe one is supposed to pay at the desk? -mark

Miscellaneous (Other Remarks, Interesting Stories, etc.)

The menu has a neat American success story about the current chef/owner. The narrative style, what I'd call funky near English writing, was fun to read and repeatedly proclaimed the addictiveness of the food. The menu also had other quirks, like multiple items labeled with the same number. -mark

Conversation was pretty wild and at times fairly deep. Some was as light-hearted as making fun of me and discussing what annoys people. Some involved good stories like shenanigans in Santa Cruz on July 4th. Some involved the relationships between and definitions of pornography, art, and gender. But lest one think the conversation was entirely smooth, we had some awkward transitions like bringing up funnel cakes to transition from discussing curses (s**t of bull) and pointing out the wrestling on television to get off the funnel cake discussion. -mark