Since the Olympics got under way on July 26, my family has been glued to the television set. It’s an experience I love. I like knowing that somewhere, in some distant home in Siberia or New Zealand or Zaire or Finland, another family is gathered around a television set just as we are, eagerly seeking the shining, smiling face of a son or daughter or brother or sister.
My 4-year-old and my 6-year-old are enjoying this Olympics, the first one they’ve ever really been able to understand. Actually, they probably just like the fact that they’re getting to watch more TV, but they also have their Olympic favorites. They love gymnast Dominique Moceanu, probably because she is just about their size. They squeal every time they see Gail Devers’ fingernails, and they like Michael Johnson’s gold shoes a lot.
So, caught up in this great melting pot of humanity and celebration of cultural diversity, it seemed exactly the right time to visit Bella Pizza, a three-month-old restaurant located to the right of the ticket booth at Fountain Square’s Carmike Cinema 14.
What’s so multicultural about pizza? Admittedly, not much these days. But on Saturday and Sundays only, in addition to pepperoni slices and calzones and lasagna, Bella Pizza serves Ethiopian specialties, cooked up by owner Efrem Zerihun and delivered cheerfully to your table by his lovely wife, Mibrak. And yes, they are from Ethiopia. Which, for your edification, my little American geographic ignorami, is located in East Africa.
I had never before eaten Ethiopian, but my friend Elizabeth knew something about the cuisine. The experience sounded intriguing. She and her husband, along with another couple and all of our respective children, gathered at Bella Pizza on a recent Sunday night.
We ordered a pizza for the kids and one of each of the four dishes offered from the Ethiopian section of the menu. While a full-time Ethiopian restaurant would have a more extensive menu, complete with appetizers and a larger selection of entrées, Bella Pizza does offer the mainstays of Ethiopian cooking.
And basic to all those mainstays is the bread called injera. Ethiopian food is served on it, and it serves as an all-purpose eating utensil.
Bella Pizza’s Ethiopian menu offers three wots—doro wot is made with chicken, kei wot includes finely chopped beef, and vegetarian wot combines veggies and beans. The doro and kei wots feature a thick red pepper sauce—you can order it as hot as you like; ours came with a healthy kick. The fourth choices is tibs, another beef dish.
According to Efrem, it takes two days to create the injera, which is made from teff, a millet-like starch. The batter for the bread is poured into a skillet and cooked. The result is a large, quarter-inch-thick, crépe-like bread with a slightly sour taste and a spongy texture.
One piece of injera covers a large platter. The entrées are served on top of it; then more folded injera is placed around the edge of the platter. When Mibrak presents the platters, she explains how the food is traditionally eaten, but she also offers forks and spoons. We opted to go native Ethiopian.
The process is pretty simple: Just tear off a piece of bread and use it to scoop up a bite of the meat and some of the sauce; then pop it in your mouth.
The doro wot included two chicken legs and two hard-boiled eggs. The chicken legs were harder to share among six people, but Mibrak told us that we could have asked for chicken pieces. Even then, I bet, the chicken will still be dark meat, which probably helps account for the bargain prices ($6-$6.50 per wot). The chopped-beef kei wot, simmered in the red pepper sauce, was probably the table favorite. Both of these dishes were sprinkled with white clabbered cheese. Tibs are bite-sized slivers of braised beef with sliced onions and green pepper. We also liked the vegetarian platter—mounds of vinegary but not bitter kale, curried chunks of cooked white potato, a thick, caramel-colored paste of pea flour, and a lentil purée that was faboo.
While we were sopping up our wots with our injera, the children were happily polishing off a large, hand-thrown, thin-crust cheese pizza ($8). The grown-ups sampled a few bites and gave it a seal of approval. At dessert time, we also liked the spumoni and the cannoli.
Beverages include soft drinks, iced tea, and juices; we brought a bottle of wine and opened and poured it ourselves. Our bill for the four wots, a large pizza, drinks, and five desserts was $55.80.
Bella Pizza is located next door to the Carmike Cinema in Fountain Square at MetroCenter (254-1584). No credit cards or checks—cash only. Hours for sampling the Ethiopian selections are 12:30-11 p.m. Saturday and 12:30-10 p.m. Sunday.
Burn out
In spite of the recent troubles at Union Station Hotel, the two resident restaurants, Broadway Bistro and Arthur’s, are both open for business as usual. BB opens at 11 a.m. for lunch and also serves dinner; Arthur’s opens for dinner at 5:30 p.m. seven days a week.
Toque talk
There’s been a changing of the toques at two of Nashville’s favorite restaurants. Will Greenwood, who came on board at Sunset Grill just over a year ago, has left to pursue other opportunities. Taking his place as executive chef is Jeff Lunsford, who has spent the past year as Sunset’s sous chef. The 27-year-old Lunsford, a Nashville native, started in the business at The Orangerie in Knoxville. He spent a year as a cook at Birmingham’s Botega, part of Frank Stitt’s culinary empire. He then spent four years in New Orleans, working as day chef under the highly touted Susan Spicer at Bayona and also working with the late Chef John Neal at Peristyle. Sunset introduced its new menu last week. Wayne Stroud, a three-year SG vet, has been promoted to sous chef.
Meanwhile, there’s a flurry of activity in the Faison Family. Cafe 123, which sustained roof damage a couple of weeks ago, remains closed, with reopening six weeks to three months away. Much of the staff has been repositioned at various Faison outposts. Patrice Boely has signed on as chef at Faison’s, bringing a résumé that includes stints at fine restaurants in France, New York, and at Julian’s in Nashville. He has introduced Wino Wednesdays, a four-to-seven-course meal of French cooking paired with appropriate wines. Call 298-2112 for reservations. Faison’s, which resumes lunch service Aug. 1, is also introducing a new menu at lunch and dinner.
Jody Faison, by the way, is now sole owner of Jules Dining Hall and Bar Car. A new lunch menu is being introduced this week, as well as a separate menu of casual foods for the bar car. Robert Faison is tweaking the dinner menu. Stay tuned....
