From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Feb 05 2010 - 16:46:30 EST
City Scene: Finding African bites close to home in downtown Portland
February 5, 2010
By <http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/authorpage.php?authorid=479> Rachel
Goldman and <http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/authorpage.php?authorid=626>
Sara Hubbard
ORIENT STAFF
Each week the Orient spotlights different aspects of the arts and
entertainment scene in Portland. This week's installment focues on ethnic
food.
This week we headed to Portland and rewarded our taste buds with a
transcontinental dining experience. Although Brunswick's downtown is home to
an increasingly diverse selection of ethnic food eateries, an African
restaurant has yet to make that list. So we set out to find one in downtown
Portland.
Enter Asmara, a small Eritrean restaurant tucked away on Oak Street, just
off Congress Street in the heart of the downtown. Asmara provides an
intimate dining experience with only six tables and the intermingling sounds
from a small TV and the visible kitchen that becomes part of the dining
area.
As we sat waiting for a friend, Asmeret Teklu, the owner, cook and server
brought us a warm pot and two glasses: "Some tea while you're waiting," she
said. "To keep you warm."
Teklu moved to Portland 13 years ago in April of 1997. Six years ago, in
2004, she opened up this restaurant which she operates single- handedly,
although she welcomes help from family during especially-frenzied evenings.
"There are nights when it gets extra busy," Teklu said. "And I call in my
husband and young kids."
>From our first glance at Asmara's menu, we knew that we had found the
traditional African meal we'd been looking for.
On a menu that invited us to "gather around our table, or mossed, to be
carried away to our homeland where our traditions of food and family are our
greatest gift to the world," we found abundant meat and vegetarian
options-all of which looked delicious and hearty.
With that in mind, we asked Teklu what she liked best on the menu.
"Spicy," she said grinning, and asked if we also liked our food keyi,
meaning fiery. Scanning the menu, we saw the rather polar spicy-scale:
either keyi, or altitcha, meaning milder, and so we bravely took her advice
and ordered our entrees keyi, although with trepidation.
To start our meal, we had deep-fried cauliflower and broccoli dipped in
chickpea powder. Although these appetizers were good, the main course
certainly provided the most memorable part of the dining experience.
Although the menu explains the presentation and the eating to be communal,
Asmara redefined the idea of communal eating for us in a way that was both
aesthetically beautiful and entertaining.
At Asmara, silverware and individual plates are not to be found. Instead,
our three entrees, lamb, chicken and vegetarian, were all served alongside
each other on three large pieces of a flatbread called injera. A variety of
stebhi, sauces and stews, sat atop the fan of flatbread beside our dishes
and as Teklu set the platter between us, it seemed an edible color wheel:
soft green salads and a red lentil stew mixing in with the deep orange of
carrots and potatoes in their yellow sauce.
And so with only our fingers and several napkins to clear the inevitable
mess, we began pulling off pieces of the injera and scooped from the platter
before us.
The dishes were hearty, spicy and satiating, each with their own distinct
taste that the porous injera soaked up, functioning much like an edible
sponge. With a taste similar to sourdough, injera added a mild sourness to
every bite, although one that was pleasantly overcome by the stronger spices
lingering in the dishes and side sauces.
As the menu and the hearty taste implied, these Eritrean meals are ones
steeped in tradition for Teklu and her family.
"I learned to cook from my mother when I was very young," Teklu said. "And
when my daughter is older"-she held up a hand to indicate that, as of now,
her daughter barely clears her hip-"I will teach her [to cook] as well."
Semblances of this tradition in food and family cling to Asmara's walls and,
as our meal concluded, we admired the restaurant's traditional decorations.
>From photographs to woven baskets and even a baby carrier, Teklu explained
that all the decorations hailed from Eritrea.
She motioned toward a hand-woven basket hanging on the wall that she had
made, as well as a larger version sitting beside the door, that-in a more
traditional setting-would hold the large communal bowl in which our meal had
been served.
Wiping the traces of our culinary experience off of our fingers with the
warm damp towels, and with our stomachs happily full of new spices, we all
agreed that Asmara was a find that we would certainly revisit and most
definitely recommend to others. With good prices, new tastes, and a
beautiful communal spirit that makes any meal one to remember, Asmara is
certainly worth the drive to Portland.
Asmara
51 Oak Street.
Tuesday-Sunday 9:30 a.m.-9 p.m.
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