Bunna Cafe Visited 9/8/2012 3.5 Forks

Bunna Cafe -  Location Varies

I am pretty big fan of Ethiopian food but there generally aren't a lot of them around. There's  Ghenet, Meskerem, and Awash just to name a few but there's probably not that many more.  I had been reading about this vegan Ethiopian place that pops up around Williamsburg and Bushwick and I was totally intrigued.  Luckily this past Saturday, they popped up near my apartment at a bar called The West on Union Ave and Hope Street (haha, the corner of Hope and Union - I'm not sure if that is some kind of sign for me).

I wasn't sure what to expect...I kind of thought that they would actually take over the entire place and cook the food there like they did at Yuji Ramen.  But instead here it's still primarily a bar/cafe and Bunna Cafe just had a table set-up in the back of the bar with containers and bags of food.  You walk up to the table and order what you want and they plate it right there.  You have a choice of 4 dishes ($8) or all 7 for $12.  Of course I had to get all 7 and boy is it a lot of food on one small plate.  When you get all 7 you get gomen (steamed kale with carrots, red onion, ginger, garlic and herbs), misir wot (red lentils), yeter kik alicha (yellow split peas with yellow curry), keysir (beets, carrots and potatoes), yesuf fit fit (sunflower milk and peppers), yetimatim selata (raw tomatoes with lime juice and oil) and chuny selata (kale, tomato raisin and avocaod in olive oil).  And of course you get 3 helpings of the spongy bread, injera. 

All of the food was super fresh and healthy tasting (I mean, it is vegan after all).  The problem with Ethiopian food is that it's usually served all on 1 plate and it's hard to decipher what's what as everything gets mixed together.  So I had a hard time telling what I was eating and what I liked the most.  I do know that I found myself going back to the yellow split pea section and the split red lentils multiple times.  I did manage to try all of the dishes (I think) but could barely finish half of the plate.  There wasn't any one dish that I didn't enjoy eating.   The food was all flavorful without being overwhelming.  I also really loved their injera.  It was super soft and spongey but strong enough to hold all your food with each bite.  While I don't mind vegan food at all, the dishes that I do usually like with Ethiopian food include egg and lamb and it was sorely missed here.  Aarti also made a comment about how it was also a bit different (not necessarily good or bad) that all of the food was served cold.  By the nature of their set-up, they had to cook all the food first and then serve it on beds of ice.  Usually when the food comes from a restaurant, some of the dishes are warm, so it did kind of feel like we were eating at a picnic instead of a restaurant.  My one small pet peeve is that when I am eating at a place that serves food that requires you to eat with your hands, you should get wet naps in addition to just napkins.  Yes, I know, you can always go to the bathroom to wash your hands, but it would just be a nice touch.  I do love the idea of pop-up shops and I would try Bunna if it pops up at other places nearby, but I would definitely get the 4 dishes for $8 instead. 

Photo Credit: Yelp