Ethiopia in Guelph

QB2 Ethiopian and Eritrean Cuisine
#4-86 Dawson Road, Guelph
Monday-Friday at 11 a.m.; Saturday at 4 p.m.
Dinner for two $45 (not licensed)
519-546-8811; qb2.goldbook.ca

Amuse-bouche: QB2’s Ethiopian and Eritrean cooking features classic berbere sauce, stews (wot), a wide range of vegetables and vegetarian dishes and the flat, bubbly and fermented injera bread which serves as your fork and spoon with which to gobble it up.

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Some of the best restaurant experiences come from the most unlikely places: small, out-of-way the Italian trattorias, ma and pa-operated sandwich joints located in industrial malls, food trucks and French fry outlets open only for the summer season.

I have only a vague idea of what the name of the restaurant refers to, but QB2 is an Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurant somewhat hidden in said industrial mall just off of Speedvale Avenue.

QB2 cooks in a commercial sector of Guelph.

More important than the name, QB2 generated for me one of those wonderful—and rare—food experiences whereby you discover a food culture and forge a point of contact with the people doing the cooking and explaining to you their cuisine.

There’s a bakery next door, which is apparently designated QB1; however, names don’t matter except for Lemo and Kuki (pronounced cookie) the restaurant owners. Lemo cooks while Kuki takes care of the front of the house and supervises her young children. She also washes your hands for you. More on that later.

The décor is relatively sparse with large posters of their menu above a bar area (from the previous restaurant) with some wicker “huts” to give you a sense of the country.

Lemo, apparently, has cooked in Italy and has spent some time in the Conestoga College culinary program. He has a laid-back style, and the couple seems to take a good deal of pride in their national cooking and the way they present it. Dishes are made from scratch so just a warning that wait-time can be a bit lengthy.

Beneath is a large disk of injera.

Ethiopian cooking focuses on spicy veg and proteins prepared in stews (wot) with a base of what is for me an enjoyable fermented flatbread called injera, made from a flour called teff.

Add to that a wondrous sauce called berbere—deep and rich and hot and made with about 50 ingredients—and there are some pretty vibrant flavours and textures available in the cuisine despite a relatively simple menu.

Meat entrees are divided among beef, chicken and lamb dishes which include ingredients like Ethiopian butter and mitmita hot chili.

The vegetarian selections are actually even more interesting with a range of legumes like red lentils, as well as collard greens, chick peas, cabbage and ginger. The half-dozen or so dishes run $8-$10 making them pretty good value. In addition to tea, QB2 offers an Ethiopian coffee ceremony, which is obviously an important cultural event as well as a caffeinated one.

Components of QB2 coffee ceremony.

First, though, before any food arrives at your table, Kuki visits with a two-part chalice affair. She takes the top part of the device, which looks like a stylized aluminum coffee carafe, and pours some water over your hands which you hold over the bottom part so it acts as a sink to capture the rinse water. It’s quite quaint.

QB2 staff and this chalice are used to help customers wash their hands at table-side before eating.

Then Kuki brings to the table a large covered wicker basket inside of which is a platter holding an 18-inch diameter disk of injera. No utensils are required. No utensils are to be found. The injera becomes a palette onto which Kuki places the various proteins and veg of the dishes you’ve ordered.

Morsels of grilled beef and lamb are spooned onto the injera.

Next, tear off a piece of injera and use it to as a small pouch to pinch up a mouthful of lamb or beef pieces called tibbs and a bit of garlic and spicy sauce. The flavours are tremendous and some of the sauce concoctions are quite spicy-hot indeed.

If I have a complaint with some cuisines, like that of the Indian sub-continent as it is presented to us here in North America, it is that too often the dishes have too similar flavours. That wasn’t the case with at least two dishes here.

Though its name sounds like a Mississippi barbecue pit-master, smokey tibbs is small cubes of nicely cooked lamb, a scattering of veg and a spicing that is completely different from beef “chacha” tibbs—though equally as good.

Dero wot is a small cast-iron pot holding a drumstick and a hardboiled egg: both are excellent. But what sets off the dish is the extremely rich sauce in which the chicken and the egg are concealed (and, no, I don’t know which came first).

Prices are reasonable and there is plenty of injera at QB2. But what made this meal was getting to know Lemo and Kuki and their family as they presented to us the cooking and food from their native land. In that regard, it was perfect meal to lead into the Canada Day weekend.

Kuki and Lemo run front-of-house and kitchen, respectively.

Restaurant reviews are based on anonymous and unannounced visits to the establishments. Restaurants do not pay for any portion of the reviewer’s meal. Listen to “The Food Show” Sundays at noon on 570 News Radio. Andrew Coppolino can be reached at andrew@waterlooregioneats.com.