Canadian Food, Wine, and Spirits: Reviews

This page is still in development - we're working on the back end to make it fun and interactive so that you can submit your own reviews as well as comment on those of our team.

In the meantime, enjoy this first post from Frieda:

August 27, 2009 - African Palace

The stretch on Bloor between Ossington and Dufferin is clustered with Ethiopian eateries – a good sign is that there are actually Ethiopians in them. From the Ehiopian food i've eaten, the experience has always been stuck somewhere between ok and mildly gratifying: I never get much more than a brief impression of the cuisine.

That said, African Palace on the Bloor strip does more with traditional flavours and textures than other Ethiopian places I’ve been to. The restaurant is charmingly enveloped in incense and spices, appropriately enmeshing itself with the brassy 80s style furniture, which is to say, a harbinger of good things to come.

We ordered a four person vegetarian platter that included all but one of the vegetarian dishes – that means a total of 8 types of vegetarian stews and salads arranged in large round dish atop injera. Injera is a staple of Ethiopian cuisine a cross between bread, pancake and crepe with a mild sourdough flavour.

The proprietor of African Palace even came out to demonstrate how to properly maneouver the injera as spoon concept. For the record, you must rip apart the injera in mouthsized pieces, place it on the desired stew/salad and twist to pickup the food. The flavours were solidly conceived and had the depth I was looking for. The Yekik Alicha, yellow split peas in a turmeric sauce was appropriately rich and the Silsi, tomato, onion and garlic in berbere sauce became a lovely demonstration of how well tomato takes on spice. We balanced out the meal with a traditional coffee ceremony which consisted of an intoxicating mix of frankincense, beautifully roasted beans, and a lively explanation of coffee’s significance in Ethiopian/Eritrean culture.

African Palace is comfortable, in the highest sense of the word, and a pleasurable entrée into East African cuisine.

African Palace
http://www.africanpalace.ca
834 Bloor Street West
Toronto, ON M6G 1M2
(Located between Shaw and Ossington)