First Tibs: Exploring Ethiopian Food at Finfine
By B. J. Calurus, Special to the Planet
With all the Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurants in Berkeley and Oakland, it took me a while to get around to Finfine. My loss.
My dining companion and I went there on a tip from a dental hygienist with Ethiopian roots. Commenting on another well-regarded venue, she said that was mainly where her fellow expats went to hang out and drink coffee, although the food was passable. For Ethiopian cuisine with the freshest ingredients, she recommended Finfine.
Well, she was right. After a couple of visits, I’m prepared to put this place, downstairs in The Village at Telegraph and Blake, at or near the top of the local rankings. The ingredients are indeed fresh, and handled with a light touch, a refinement, that’s exceptional. And you’ll find dishes that go well beyond the Horn-of-Africa standards.
On our first foray, we were accompanied by a vegetarian (and occasionally piscivorous) friend. One of the things I’ve always liked about Ethiopian restaurants is that they’re great places to take visiting vegetarians.
The Coptic Church to which most Amharic- and Tigre-speaking Ethiopians belong has 208 meatless days on its calendar. Of necessity, Coptic Ethiopians developed a rich and varied vegetarian cuisine, based on several kinds of lentils, chickpeas, and collard greens, and augmented in the last few centuries by potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers. There’s even a “mock meat” tradition, with chickpea flour molded into fish shapes and fried.
So we ordered the vegetarian combination, and a sea-bass dish, goord-asa tibs, that sounded promising. Finfine’s menu is unusual for its depth in fish. As the restaurant’s helpful web site explains, anything called “tibs” is going to be stir-fried; “wat” denotes a stew. And both the fish and vegetables were splendid. I could have used more collards, but that’s just me. The green beans were just on the tender side of crunchy; the lentils were subtly seasoned.
“The ingredients aren’t cooked down as much as in other places,” our friend said appreciatively. The bass—a generous serving—had been marinated, then sautéed with onions and peppers; it was tangy and succulent.
In both fish and vegetables, the spices—including the traditionally popular chilicentric mix called berbere—had been used with a light hand. I’ve had Ethiopian fare that would cauterize the taste buds; at Finfine, the seasoning complemented but didn’t overwhelm the other flavors.
For anyone new to the whole concept of Ethiopian food, I should explain injera. It’s a spongy flatbread that serves as both plate and utensil; you tear off a piece, wrap it around a morsel, and pop it into your mouth, or your companion’s mouth (a custom called goorsha).
Injera is made from tef (Eragrostis tef), a grain endemic to the Ethiopian highlands, which may have been one of several parts of the world where people independently came up with the idea of agriculture. Tef seeds are pinhead-sized and the seed heads are prone to shattering, so harvesting the stuff is labor-intensive. But it’s high in iron, resistant to disease and pests, and doesn’t require irrigation—virtues that have kept it in cultivation for millennia. >>more
I grew up in Hong Kong so I grew up on communal dining. Ethiopian/Eritrean cuisine allows you to do that, AND you get to eat with your hands! It's a great tactile experience, very different from certain other more austere, polite, puritanical cuisines. Finfine is underappreciated and I worry about their well-being, so I write letters and recommendations to this place whenever I can. Most people just know about the Blue Nile, which is just a tourist trap. Finfine is more authentic, and you can tell how? Because there are actually other Ethiopians eating there! It's tucked inside the little courtyard between Dwight and Blake on Telegraph where Fred's Fondue is. Make the point of going there next time you decide to dine out! - Wilda , posted 10/7/04
(Berkeley) Quite good Ethiopian restaurant on a less busy stretch of Telegraph near campus. Delicious freshly made food. The finfine beef and the chickpea puree are both wonderful. The collard greens weren't as good as the others. Two Ethiopian beers to choose from. (***+/$$)
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