A family from the Red Sea

Our family comes from Massawa, the old port on the Red Sea, and some of us came to Melbourne the long way round, by way of Sweden. This has been our family's restaurant since 2006. We are just down the road from Flemington Racecourse, and a day at the races followed by a platter and a beer with us is a very good day.

We cook the food of the Abyssinian highlands, the way our family cooks it at home.

A woven fan, baskets and a painted plate on the orange wall and thatch

Dorho zighini with its egg, lamb with green chillies, yellow vegetables and salad in clay dishes on injera, from above

One platter for the table

The platter comes out on a bed of injera under a woven cover, the kind every household back home has, which keeps the heat in until it comes off at the table. It goes in the middle for everyone to eat from, and after ten minutes nobody misses having a plate of their own.

How to eat with injera

Tear

Clean hands first, with the sanitiser by the door or in the bathroom. Then use your right hand and tear a piece about the size of your palm from the rolled injera at the side of the platter.

Scoop

Lay the piece over whatever looks best, the dark red lamb, the shiro, a little of the yellow, and pinch it up with your fingertips so the bread wraps the food and takes the sauce with it. Fingers underneath, thumb behind, and the thumb pushes it in. The next piece of injera picks up any sauce left on your fingers, so you will hardly touch the napkin.

Eat the base

By the end, the injera under the tsebhi has soaked up every sauce on the platter, and that is the piece everyone is quietly waiting for. You will not run out of bread, and if you want more heat there is fresh green chilli and a chilli paste on the side. There is always cutlery if you would rather; just ask.

What it is like inside

It is a small room, about fifty seats under a thatched ceiling, and it gets busy. The walls are orange and hung with woven baskets and Abyssinian paintings, and to us it feels like home. On a cold Melbourne night it fills up with people after a winter feed. There is a long table for up to twenty for birthdays and work dinners, and seven small tables outside, heated and covered against the rain.

All our meat is halal and about half the menu is vegan. Anyone avoiding gluten can have gluten-free injera with a day's notice, or steamed rice instead.