EXOTIC TASTES
ADELAIDE’S DINING SCENE IS A MELTING POT OF FLAVOURS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Restaurants are a delicious reflection of a city’s cultural diversity and Adelaide definitely offers the world on a plate.
The once-exotic Italian and Chinese cuisines have hit the mainstream as keen foodies search for new flavour experiences and ethnic cuisines.
SA Restaurant and Catering head Sally Neville says the rising value of the Australian dollar and the surge in overseas travel is fuelling the growing interest in the foods of other cultures.
“The access we have to recipes via the internet and the fact we can source other cultures’ food products at specialty stores or supermarkets is really driving an interest in cooking styles that were non-existent 20 years ago,” she says.
Parwana is Adelaide’s first and only Afghani restaurant and is owned by the Ayubi family who came to Australia from Afghanistan in 1989.
The family-run venue includes matriarch and head chef Farida and her husband Zelmai while one of their five daughters, Fatima, manages the restaurant.
The menu offers classic Afghani dishes which are part of a distinctive cuisine influenced by neighbouring countries such as Russia, China, India and Pakistan.
“People love our food because of the home-style flavours and they recognise the various spice flavours from other cuisines like Moroccan or Turkish but it all comes together differently in Afghani cuisine,” Fatima says.
Popular dishes include ashak dumplings, in a delicate wonton-like skin filled with chopped leeks and served with a well-seasoned lamb sauce. The narenge palaw is a national dish with fragrant, perfectly cooked rice, candied orange peelings mixed in with slivered almonds and peeled pistachio pieces and chicken pieces while desserts include the colourful falooda layered icecream, saffron jelly, intense rose syrup and basil seeds.
Adelaide’s only Sudanese restaurant is Babanusa at Prospect, owned by Eltahir Malik who came to Australia in 1983 from the Sudanese capital Khartoum (via Greece) where he trained as a civil engineer. Chef Eddie Ahmed also hails from Khartoum and cooks traditional Sudanese food with full-flavoured, not overly spicy dishes. Tasty homemade dips are served with kisra, traditional thin bread, while jagadig is Sudanese comfort food - spicy beef stew in a rich sauce served with fresh green spinach and black eye beans. Dilih is a beef rib dish served with tamarind sauce (damaa) and baladia salad (onion, cucumber, tomato and rocket).
At Hindmarsh, Estifanos Hailu and wife Nigist Tensay run Zagol House with its cuisine from the Horn of Africa, namely the north-eastern countries of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The majority of the satisfying, home-style main courses are served with injera, which is pancake-like bread with a slightly sour taste which is used to mop up the dishes. Wot is the name for hot and spicy saucy dishes, while alicha is a milder version and tibs refers to sauteed or grilled meat or lamb.
Estifanos says many exotic spices are used in Ethiopian cuisine such as fiery awaze, a paste made with mitmita (hot pepper powder), garlic and spices, berbere made with powdered chilli and other spices and kibbeh, a clarified butter infused with ginger garlic and spices
- Parwana, 124B Henley Beach Rd Torrensville
- Babanusa, www.babanusa.com.au