Maya McFadden Photo
Shilmat Tessema has mastered making food that you don’t need utensils to eat.
Tessema, head chef and owner of Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant, serves food she has been cooking and eating her whole life like yemisir sambusa, which is a vegan fried pastry filled with spiced green lentils.
The restaurant at 176 Temple St. teaches its customers the Ethopian etiquette of hand-to-mouth dining. The restaurant has vegan/vegetarian and meat menus made up of utensil-free dishes.
Take-out and delivery orders will prove crucial to the ability of local restaurants like Lalibela’s to weather the pandemic during the coming months as Covid-19 cases climb and cold weather sets in. Pick up a yemisir sambusa or other dishes to go by showing up in person, or calling (203) 789‑1232. Deliveries are also available through GrubHub and Uber Eats. The restaurant is open from 11:30 a.m to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Dishes are eaten on injera, a flatbread that physically resembles a crepe but is more spongy.
Tessema (pictured) learned to cook from her mother while growing up in Ethiopia. She took over the restaurant from her brother about 14 years ago. It is open six days a week for lunch and dinner.
Tessema usually starts her mornings prepping large quantities of dishes like yemisir sambusa to refrigerate throughout the day until ordered.
To make the popular appetizer so tasty, Tessema starts by boiling a pot of green lentils. Once the lentils become soft, Tessema knows it is time to drain them and let them cool.
While they cool, Tessema makes the filling cutting up red onions and hot green peppers and cooking them with oil. After they cook alone for three minutes, she adds in the boiled lentils and cooks the two together with an Ethiopian spice blend called berbere, salt, and black pepper.
Tessema cooks the filling mixture until the components begin to stick together slightly. Then the filling is left to cool for ten minutes.
While the dish cools, Tessema will quickly put together selata, a tomato salad with hot peppers and a citrus dressing.
Then, using a thin triangular pastry sheet, she folds the corners together to create a cone-like structure and fills the opening with three spoon fulls of the lentil mixture. Instead of using egg to seal the pastry corners, Tessema uses a flour and water mixture to seal the vegan sambusa.
The restaurant preps dozens of sambusas at once and refrigerates the food until ordered. Once an order comes in for the appetizers, Tessema slowly drops them into hot oil and let them fry for seven minutes making them golden brown and crunchy.
Tessema said she preps more sambusa’ on Friday and Saturday than any other day of the week. The accompanying spiced chickpea dip is made ahead of time and refrigerated until plated. The dip is served cold alongside the warm and fried sambusas.
“We’re unique. There isn’t anyone like this around,” Tessema said.
Tessema also makes different combos for entrees. Customers can order a specialty combo made up either vegan or meat dishes.
Some popular veggie platter options are kosta (spinach and potatoes), tikel gomen (cabbage and potatoes), fosolia (green beans and carrots), and yemisir wot (lentils).
The doro wot is a berbere-rubbed stew chicken that is tender and slightly spicy. Tessema’s favorite sides with doro wot are gomen (collard greens) and green squash and carrots.
Lalibela opened in 1999. Tessema didn’t take over as owner until 2006.
“When we came a lot of things around were abandoned” on now-busy Temple Street, Tessema said. “We were the first.”
Tessema prepares all of her dishes as she learned them in Ethiopia.
It is not uncommon for the dishes to use seasonings like fresh ginger, turmeric, shallots, onion, and garlic, as those are traditional in Ethiopian culture. Tessema uses no artificial colorings to cook, only natural dyes like turmeric to get bright and golden dishes.
At the start of the Covid pandemic the restaurant closed down for three months, then reopened at the end of May, offering takeout only. Lalibela was already making use of third-party delivery services like Grubhub and Uber Eats before the pandemic; it introduced curbside pick-up after reopening.
It then opened up its dine-in services in June at half capacity. Now dine-in services serve at 75 percent capacity.
Meals at home for the Tessema’s don’t differ from those in the Lalibela kitchen she said. “This is what we eat. It’s home and made authentic.”
The centerpiece of the meal, injera comes on the dishes and in a basket rolled into cylinders with the entrees. “This way it is easier for customers especially when eating in groups,” said Tessema.
The injera is used in place of silverware. Customers are instructed to tear apart the rolls to scoop up the food. To cook the injera Tessema uses a steel round comal. The bread is placed first on dishes to hold each paired entree.
It isn’t uncommon for Tessema to often take the time to explain to customers dining in about how to use the injera in place of utensils. Utensils however are still available.
At Lalibela’s, all vegetarian options are also vegan. In Ethiopian culture, the two words are used interchangeably explained Shilmat’s husband Wub Tessema. “If it’s vegetarian it has to be vegan for us,” he said.
The downtown restaurant feeds many college students. Some Ethiopian customers have even traveled from Boston and New York to receive a home-like meals at Lalibela’s said Tessema.
Authentic spices like berbere are imported from Ethiopia for the restaurant.
Since reopening Tessema has introduced outdoor patio seating for customers to enjoy this coming Spring. “I know they will come. Many have history here with us,” she said.
Previous coverage of recommended take-orders to help keep local businesses survive the pandemic:
• Today’s Special: Haci’s Napoletana Pie
• Today’s Special: Fred & Patty’s Brie On Baguette
• Today’s Special: Nieda’s Moist Falafel
• Today’s Special: Qulen’s Vegan “Wings”
• Today’s Special: Aaron’s Peruvian Rice Bowl
• Today’s Special: Singh Bros.’ Chana Kulcha
• Today’s Special: Grandma’s Chicken Soup
• Today’s Special: Woody’s Steak & Shrimp
Thanks for this piece, and for reminding us of ways/places to support through takeout if not by dining in.
I'm a longtime fan of Lalibela and miss going there, and elsewhere, in person...