Makeda

Park yourself at a mesob, roll up your injera and scoop up some wat — it’s a recipe to delight the senses at this Ethiopian restaurant in New Brunswick.

By: Antoinette Buckley

   DINING at Makeda is an experience that awakens the senses. Its intoxicating aromas, music, traditional Ethiopian fixtures and marvelous Ethiopian cuisine are all exhilarating.
   Live music adds a party spirit to a space that is already abuzz with conversation. Thursdays usually feature jazz bands. Fridays incite dancing with African, salsa, R&B and Brazilian bands. Saturdays feature R&B and Motown bands.
   Entering Makeda, I was struck by the lively cocktail area that housed a sleek wooden bar and traditional Ethiopian tables, called mesob. These cylindrical tables, woven from colorful wicker, resemble upside-down baskets.
   In the main dining room the tables and chairs are more conventional, but bold African-looking earth-tone fabrics cover benches and chairs. One side of the restaurant is lined with glass windows, allowing a peek at the African boutique next door. Owned by the proprietors of Makeda, it sells art, jewelry and furniture.
   Makeda is in its sixth year of operation. In that time, owners Ogbe and Felitia Guobadia and Stuart Smith have kept their ears perked, listening to their customers and implementing changes based on feedback. This, coupled with experienced Ethiopian chefs, is a recipe for success. Head chef Aster Kassa, a cook for 45 years, and assistant chef Yeshiemebet Adefrs work magic in the kitchen.

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

One side of the restaurant is lined with glass windows, allowing a peek at the African boutique next door.

   Even those unfamiliar with Ethiopian food can enjoy it. It is an effortless, fun immersion into a world of bite-sized meats and vegetables in heady sauces that swirl with seasonings and spices. The backbone of Ethiopian food is highly spiced wats (stews) and sautées that are eaten with injera, unleavened bread made from teff, a small, highly nutritious grain indigenous to Ethiopia. Teff is made into a dough and allowed to ferment before it is cooked into injera. Injera — spongy, slightly sour and similar in appearance to a crepe — is your only utensil. Ripping a piece of injera off, wrapping it around a bite-sized portion of stew, and then popping it into your mouth has a sensuality to it that a fork or spoon just can’t impart. Injera is integral to the flavor of whatever is eaten with it. Its provocative texture and tang add another distinct dimension to the food it engulfs.
   Makeda offers an extensive selection of wines and makes a point of stocking wines from the southern hemisphere including those from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina.
   In response to customer requests for appetizers, Makeda added them to their original menu. Appetizers are not a part of Ethiopian cuisine, so all the appetizers are Moroccan and seem redundant against the full-bodied Ethiopian entrées. A tasty but uninspired zaalouk ($5.50) featuring chunks of pan-fried eggplant that were gently seasoned with a peppery after-trail lacked the intensity that most other dishes have. Vivacious Moroccan meatballs, or kefta ($6.50), coated in a rich, brown sauce had that intensity but seemed a tad too salty.
   The real delight is in the entrées. If you are a beginner at Ethiopian food, the menu can be difficult to navigate as the terms "tibs," "wat" and "alecha" are found again and again, paired with vegetables, beef, chicken or shrimp (no pork). In rudimentary terms: Tibs is a dish prepared with an African salsa that uses tomatoes, onion and a mix of spices. Wat is a stew that uses berberé, a mysterious blend of spices from Ethiopia in which red pepper is a major component. Berberé is probably the most prominent spice in Ethiopian cooking. Alecha is milder than a wat and does not use berberé.
   The Best of the Best, a sampler platter for two ($46), showcased a grand tasting of 11 dishes from the menu. Utensils used for our Moroccan appetizers were removed from the table and a platter fit for a Thanksgiving turkey was placed between us. As is customary, the platter was lined with injera and then topped with separate mounds of meat, vegetable and shrimp creations that cozied up together forming a stunning, well-balanced arrangement of color and tastes.

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

   Every mound was unique. In this crowd-pleasing entrée, nothing was fiery hot, but spicy and flavorful. Tibs wat boasted tender chunks of prime rib infused with the zesty flavors of the robust sauce in which it was simmered. Minchetabesh used ground prime rib in a similar sauce but with the addition of ginger and cardamom, giving it a sweeter spin. Beg alecha included tender chunks of braised lamb flavored with a mild Ethiopian herb-reduction sauce.
   Conservative doro alecha featured chicken leg and thigh meat that was also simmered in an herb-reduction sauce. Its partner chicken dish, doro wat, was marinated in fenugreek — a pleasantly bitter seed — ginger and lemon juice and seasoned more aggressively with the prized berberé spice, giving it a darker appearance and richer flavor. Its multiple layers of flavor made it one of my favorites. Shrimp tibs marinated in awaze sauce (honey wine and berberé) was the most underdressed of the crowd, allowing the taste of shrimp to come through.
   Gomen wat displayed a generous heap of minimally seasoned collard greens, providing a lift from the heavier dishes surrounding it as well as a textural change. Yellow peas (shiro wat and kik alicha) were presented in a mild and spicy form. Lentils (mesir wat) cooked in a mild berberé sauce augmented the platter with a good cross between meat and vegetables. Finally, a mix of green beans, potatoes, green peppers, cabbage and onions (atakilt wat) was the most familiar feeling dish and therefore the most low-key.
   The desserts, while pleasant, have nothing to do with Ethiopia: mousses, cakes and tarts. In Ethiopia, fruit is the dessert, and a previous Makeda menu had fruit but it was eliminated in response to customer requests. The purist in me says, "out with the appetizers and in with the fruit," but, then again, why mess with a highly successful dining experience?
For directions to Makeda, click here.