New Ethiopian restaurant in Sydney

One of the most popular posts on this blog has nothing to do with embroidery, but is instead about a visit to an Ethiopian restaurant here in Sydney. The one we previously visited in Bankstown has closed some time back, but there is a new one now open!

Jambo Jambo African Restaurant, like the previous one we visited, masquerades as an African restaurant but is actually specifically Ethiopian. We went there for dinner last night and had a great time, with fabulous food!

We chose to have a selection of dishes including doro alicha (mild chicken dish), goden tibs (grilled beef ribs), alicha wot (lamb stew), and alicha (curried vegetables). When the dishes came to the table, there were five and we had only chosen four. This confused us slightly, but we went with it!

They all came with injera (a sourdough pancake), which is traditionally made with tef flour in Ethiopia, but theirs was made with sorghum and tef. The tef is imported from Ethiopia, so I suppose that adding the sorghum brings the cost down a bit! Injera is made in huge pancakes, about 40cm (16 inches) diameter. They often serve the meat and vegie dishes on it. Extra injera is rolled up and cut into sections, and served as small rolls of pancake.

It was all delicious. While cutlery was supplied, the traditional way to eat Ethiopian food is to take a small piece of injera and place it over the food to pick up the stew/meat/vegies, rather like covering it with a very small blanket. You put it all into your mouth together. The next mouthful uses a new piece of injera. Of course, you’re supposed to do it right-handed, but me being left-handed, I am culturally inappropriate and use my left hand.

Later, we asked our host, Joseph Bekele, which dish was which (to try to find out what the extra one was!). He had also supplied us with beef tibs, which is grilled beef. He said it is usually made with lamb (yes, we’ve had lamb tibs before and loved it!) but he’d run out of lamb, so had done it with beef. Neither the beef or the lamb versions were on the menu, but tibs was a dish we had been looking forward to, so we were pleased he added that to our selection!
Towards the end of our time there, Joseph roasted some Ethiopian coffee beans. Ethiopia is one of a number of places that claims to be the birthplace of coffee, so to them coffee is a very big deal! He came around and showed us the beans roasted in the pan, and I suppose we were supposed to smell them. To me they just smelt burnt (but I am not a tea or coffee drinker, so I am no afficionado!). He then brought out a great big coffee pot to sit on our table. It sits on a heat ring, traditionally made from grasses that have been dyed and twisted into cord. Once the coffee has brewed it is poured into tiny little cups to be drunk.

For readers who are newish to this blog, we spent three months living, working and schooling in Ethiopia about four years ago. This is where our love of Ethiopian food comes from. My family went back there last Easter, but I missed out on the return trip because I was teaching at Beating Around the Bush needlework conference. We really enjoyed our time in Ethiopia.

All the Ethiopian restaurants we have been to in Australia are not cheap. I guess this is because they import some of their ingredients such as tef and some of the spices from Ethiopia as they are not available here. Possibly it is also difficult to get chefs who are used to cooking Ethiopian food. Despite the expense, the restaurant was very busy, even on a Tuesday night – a testament to its great food! And besides, it is much cheaper than a trip to Ethiopia to sample the food there!

If you are wanting to try a new culinary experience, I believe there is a Groupon deal currently available (until about June 2013) for Jambo Jambo that might help you. Jambo Jambo have a website, and a Facebook page.

Jambo Jambo African Restaurant
Shop 16
Crows Nest Plaza
103-11 Willoughby Road
Crows Nest
Ph: 9439 3277

I highly recommend Jambo Jambo, and I’m sure we’ll go there again when we need another “fix” of Ethiopian food. We paid for our own meal, and have no affiliations etc.