At Café Desta, make sure your hands are clean.
Eating with your hands (well, right hand, actually) is the norm. It's an Ethiopian restaurant and the style of eating is sans utensils. Which is great - it heightens the sensual experience of eating the spicy cuisine.
The small, three-month-old restaurant is at Five Points, where South Sixth and Stone Avenues intersect 18th Street. Right outside the restaurant's big picture window you can see where the streets meet and cars whiz by. Looming overhead is a big billboard: "Fireworks now in Arizona!"
It could be referring to the Ethiopian cuisine owners Brooke and Telahoun Molla dish up in the small cafe, which has an exposed brick wall and shiny green tables.
The Mollas grew up in Tucson, but weren't convinced until recently that Tucson could support two Ethiopian eateries (Zemam's opened in the mid-1990s). The Molla family also owns Cafe Lalibela in Tempe, which has drawn acclaim for its vegetarian and unique ethnic fare.
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Back to those fireworks: You can practically see the sparks flying off the kaye beg ($7.95). The lamb in the dish - cut in chunks and shockingly tender - is cooked in a paste seriously kicked with red chiles. More of that paste is added to the red sauce that the lamb sits in (kaye is the Amharic word for red, the menu explains).
Still, there's a subtlety to this dish that makes it more than a spicy stew. Maybe it's the hint of cardamom and allspice in the dish. Or the ayeb on the side ($2.15)- that's a crumbly cheese made with a mixture of buttermilk and whole milk. It cools the palate and underscores the flavor.
The kaye beg, as well as most dishes at Café Desta, come on a large plate covered with a huge round of injera, a spongy pancake that's got a tart, sourdough flavor. A basket of injera is also served on the side. Rip off a big chunk of that and scoop up your food with it - the pancake becomes your fork. But you get to eat it. Injera is like the tortilla of Ethiopia.
A specialty at Desta is the kitfo ($15.75). Beef, minced to a very fine point and perked up with mitmita (that's an Ethiopian spice with an abundance of - that's right - red chiles); kibe, a clarified butter that's kissed with garlic, ginger, cloves and other spices; and cardamom.
Next to the beef sat a small green salad generously squirted with fresh lemon juice, a hefty helping of the ayeb, and gomen. Gomen is collard greens made less bitter with garlic and onions.
All this was on a big round of the injera, which was ripped apart and quickly devoured after it was used to pick up a bit of the beef and cheese.
On another visit, we tried a combo platter for two ($24.95). It allowed a choice of dishes - up to five of them.
Well, talk about tough decisions. The menu is small but the food is so fragrant, so nuanced, so full of flavor that choosing one over another was just plain difficult.
We ended up with kik, yellow spilt peas that were mashed to a chunky state and seasoned with onion and turmeric. A velvety, rich delight. There was alicha doro in the mix - a chicken stew with lots of the wonderful clarified butter and moist, tender chunks of chicken meat.
We had to have a bit more of the gomen and found the greens were still just as thrilling; and a kaye doro - the spicy stew with chicken instead of lamb. We couldn't believe how hot it was on the first visit; we needed to confirm. Yup, memory served.
The service is friendly and low-key at Café Desta . They are ready to teach you the ins and outs of the Ethiopian style of cooking and eating, explain the dishes, and make sure you are happy (which Desta, appropriately enough, means: happy).
And they'll give you a fork if you like.
But our advice is go for the experience and eat with your hands.
Review
Café Desta
758 S. Stone Ave., 370-7000.
• Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
• Family call: It certainly is casual enough, and kids will love eating with their hands.
• Alcohol: Bring your own; no corkage fee.
• Noise level: Manageable.
• Gluten free: Many.
• Vegetarian options: Bunches of them.
• Dress: Casual.
• Reservations: Not accepted.
• Price range: Entrees range from $6.25 to $15.75.
