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Ethiopian
Food
Gets Cool and Sophisticated
Ibex, a welcome newcomer to Old Pasadena, offers
some impressive dishes.
The Los Angeles Times;
Los Angeles, Calif.; Feb 6, 1997;
By CHARLES PERRY
Fifteen
years ago, when Ethiopian food was new and strange, all you had
to choose from were little mom-and-pop places. But gradually Angelenos
got hip to the idea of picking up a fragrant, spicy mouthful of
raw beef or chicken wat in a limp swatch of crepe-like injera bread,
and soon there were Ethiopian nightspots throbbing with reggae music
as well as plangent, rattling melodies thrummed out on krars.
Now
a cool, sophisticated nouvelle Ethiopian place has opened in Pasadena,
just down the street from Twin Palms. Ibex has severe black-and-white
flower photographs on the walls instead of travel and beer posters,
and the soundtrack tends as much to jazz as to krar melodies. It
serves rather subtle, upscale renditions of the classic dishes.
The
food is not served in the usual Ethiopian fashion, on a platter
covered with injera bread. Here you have a plate, and what you want
to do with it is your business; injera and the various dishes come
separately. But the faintly purplish-tan injera is as traditional
as can be, made from the Ethiopian highland grain tef.
The
most impressive dish is kitfo, a smooth puree of raw beef and clarified
butter, aromatic with cardamom and ginger and punched up with just
a bit more red pepper than you expect. It's so rich it will give
your doctor a heart attack, but the flavor is haunting.
The
best-known Ethiopian stew is ye-doro wat, chicken cooked with much
the same spices as kitfo and a lot of medium-hot red pepper. Ibex
does a handsome version, mouth-filling and fragrant with spices
and garlic. (Ibex makes it with skinless chicken and does not follow
the colorful Ethiopian custom of including a hard-boiled egg in
the stew. Your doctor can relax.) Kay wat is beef simmered in much
the same sauce, but not as memorably.
When
they're not stewing meat in a wat, Ethiopian cooks make it into
a saute called tibs. Once again, the best of the choices here is
the chicken version, ye-doro tibs. This is the most delicately flavored
Ethiopian dish I've ever had. The spices are very discreet, and
with all the onions, garlic and butter, this tibs tastes practically
French. Ibex is a little cautious in its use of spices, and usually
I'd ask them to spice a dish up, but not with this dainty chicken.
Awaze
tibs is chewy chunks of steak stewed in a thin, tart, slightly peppery
sauce with a strong cardamom aroma. It's a bit of a one-note dish
on its own, but worth adding to the mix if you have a party of people
sampling a number of things. Ye-beg tibs is chunks of lamb in a
different and less distinctive sauce with a hint of rosemary. The
one real snooze on this menu is tibs alicha, beef with bland stewed
onions.
Ethiopia
has a large repertoire of vegetarian dishes. Ye-misir wat is red
lentils in a faintly hot, slightly sweet sauce--it tastes eerily
like a certain style of ground beef chili. There's a mixed vegetable
curry called atkilt. Gomen is collards, slightly sweet, usually
not overdone, with a hint of ginger.
*
Every
entree comes with a choice of several side dishes. Timatim fitfit
is something like a very garlicky pappa al pomodoro made with injera
instead of Italian bread; a pleasant mush of bread and tomatoes.
Aziffa is a slightly peppery mush of lentils, and kinche is bulgur
wheat pilaf elegantly flavored with butter and cardamom. The most
extraordinary side is buticha, a concoction of garbanzo flour, jalapen~os
and green onions that looks like, and even tastes astonishingly
like, scrambled eggs.
Some
Ethiopian restaurants indulge the American taste for dessert, but
here Ibex is rigorously classical. If you want something to end
the meal with, go for the full-service traditional coffee ceremony
(for two). They bring out a round-bottomed black clay coffee pot
and set it on a little doughnut-shaped pillow. As they pour your
coffee (in espresso cups), a lump of incense burns on a piece of
charcoal. (They leave the box of incense so you can put on more
if you like. Hint: The whitish lumps are frankincense, the yellowish
ones are myrrh.)
The
coffee itself is Ethiopian, of course. Ibex is thoroughly cool and
sophisticated about such things.
BE
THERE
Ibex
Ethiopian Restaurant, 119 W. Green St., Pasadena. (818) 793-3822.
Open Tue.-Fri.,11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5-10 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., noon-10
p.m. Dinner for two, food only, $16-$23. Takeout. Beer and wine.
Street parking. Visa, MasterCard and American Express. What to Get:
Timatim fitfit, buticha, ye-doro tibs, kitfo, coffee ceremony (for
two).
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