PlanJam!From your screen to the scene

Leave the cold Chicago winter behind and take your friends to Demera for excellent Ethiopian food and drinks! This Uptown restaurant is on the corner of Broadway and Lawrence, right by the Lawrence Red Line stop and the Aragon Theater, Riviera and Green Mill.

Demera is warm, from the spiciness of the berbere sauce to the paintings of Ethiopian temples and musicians on the walls and ceiling. The sunny colors of the curtains and African tablecloths and the actual warm temperature of the spacious dining rooms melts away the cold outside. Ethiopian music plays softly in the background. Service is fast and friendly and drinks are available from the full bar at the back of the restaurant .

Ethiopian cuisine lends itself to eating with a group of friends because all meals arrive on 20 inch pieces of spongy injera bread. The manner of eating is to tear off pieces of injera bread with your right hand and use the bread, rather than utensils, to eat the meat and vegetables. It’s easy to share meals or get a combo plate of four different dishes on one piece of injera. Combo meals are $14.50 -$15.50 and large enough for two or more to share, including a small house salad with lettuce, onions and bell peppers.

Demera offers a variety of vegetable, chicken, lamb and seafood dishes and a buffet lunch from noon to 4pm on Monday - Friday. About a third of the menu is vegetarian with dishes like gomen (collard greens), garbanzo beans and lentils. Coffee is presented with incense and Ethiopian honey wine ($5) nicely compliments the spicy items. I enjoyed the shiro, ($14) mixed beans with rue seed, bishop’s weed and spicy berbere sauce. The traditional, tasty doro wat ($12) features chicken drumsticks and a hard-boiled egg in berbere sauce with a side of mild homemade cottage cheese. The menu helpfully labels dishes as spicy or mild and by spicy, it means “four stars.” A nice milder meat dish is the yebug alicha ($11.50), lamb with garlic, ginger and turmeric. If you have any room for dessert after the generous portions of lunch or dinner, you can order the Missionary’s Delight - ice cream with chocolate sauce or mango juice for $2.50.

Whether Ethiopian cuisine is new to you or you are already hooked on injera bread (as I admit I am) you will enjoy the food and drinks at Demera. As the menu explains, the name demera comes from a bundle of twigs that are lit on fire on the Ethiopian September holiday of Meskal celebrating the finding of the true Cross. Meskal has been celebrated in Ethiopia for 1600 years. The delicious menu and bar here give you and your friends reason to celebrate.