Cafe Abyssinia

An enormous, shallow platter is gently lowered onto the table before us. Completely covering the dish, and extending slightly over its edge is what appears at first glance to be a thin, off-white flannel table cloth. Resting on its surface in three bowls are fragrant stews of lamb, lentils and split-pea.

Our host, Charity, picks the bowls up one by one and gently spills their contents out onto the cloth. The cloth of course is not actually cloth, but injera - the famous flat bread of Ethiopia.  The porous surface of the bread immediately begins to soak up the flavours of the stews and the air is filled with the aromas of berbere, an Ethiopian spice mix featuring chilli, coriander, fenugreek and more.

At Durban's Café Abyssinia, as in the horn of Africa, the bread is at once plate, food and utensil. There are no knives or forks needed here. You simply tear pieces of injera off the edges of your platter, scoop up a morsel of stew and pop the whole thing into your mouth.

The injera has a unique, slightly sour, lemony flavour - the result of a fermentation process similar to that used when making sourdough. Some consider it an acquired taste, but I happily acquired it on the first bite and kept on eating until the platter was clean. Traditionally prepared on a large clay plate over a fire, here it is made in what looks like an enormous electric frying pan, almost like a pancake. Because injera is not flipped, the underside remains smooth, while the top is spongy and perfect for soaking up juices.

Of course man can not live on injera alone, and the selection of wats, or Ethiopia's answer to the curry, are the perfec partner for the slightly sour flavour of the bread. We selected a yebeg alicha wat (lamb stewed with garlic, onions and tumeric), shiro (split peas) and misir (lentils) wot. Each dish was delicious, with just enough chilli to raise a mild sweat, but nothing that would detract from the depth of flavours imparted by the gently cooked meat, pulses and Charity's special berbere mix.

Vegetarians will rejoice in the fact that Ethiopians are strict observers of various fasting days when meat is avoided, and half of the menu options at Café Abysinnia are meat-free. For carnivores, there are beef, lamb, chicken and even seafood options, and the doro wot (chicken in lime, garlic, ginger and berbere) is apparently particularly good. On our visit, we also enjoyed a starter of beef meatballs, which came in a fantastic garlicky sauce that ended up being mopped up by extra injera when our main course arrived.

You will be surprised at how easy it is to put away a manhole-cover sized portion of injera, so be sure to order three or four wat's per couple. If there are more of you, just keep ordering - Charity will bring extra injera to the table in little rolls.

Café Abyssinia is unlicensed, so bring along a bottle of wine to enjoy with your meal (no corkage was charged). After dinner, be sure to order the coffee - Ethiopia is the birthplace of the bean, and coffee is served hot and black out of a clay pot, alongside lashings of sugar. I generally take my coffee with milk, but this brew managed to be strong without being bitter, and in an interesting twist, is served with a bowl of popcorn, apparently an Ethiopian tradition.

Prices are extremely reasonable. Wats vary from R40 to R60, coffee is R15 and injera is complimentary. Service is slow, but friendly as Charity works in the kitchen, front of house and as a waitress. It's not a big space, with only five or six tables in a room that spills out onto the pavement and the decor is minimal, but appropriately themed, with Lions of Judah and Ethiopian flags lending an out-of-town appeal to the place. Get there soon, before the whole of Durban finds out about it.