Six Star Magazine Six Star Magazine Fall 2018 | Page 25

Cedar’s Eatery Charlottetown | P.E.I.
With a large Lebanese community on the island, locals flock to Cedar’s Eatery to savour the fresh fattouch (parsley salad made
with zatar), Saroukh (sautéed beef in cheese curds) and yabras (domas made from grape leaves). “The garlic sauce has extra
magic in it,” says PEI chef Ilona Daniel, whose father grew up in Lebanon.
The sauce, Maroun’s Garlic Spread, which is sold in grocery stores, is named after Maroun Abdallah, who opened the restaurant
back in 1979. Close to 40 years later, traditions remain strong: the grape leaves come from the Abdallah family’s backyard and so
does the staff.
Working in the restaurant on weekends while he was growing up, son Ryan took over the bookkeeping at the tender age of 16.
“Dad is retired but sometimes he comes down to the restaurant and tells me something doesn’t taste right,” he mentions wryly,
“but he’s wrong.”
T.G. Addis Ababa Restaurant
London | Ontario
Every year, I journey with my University of Western Ontario undergraduate
food-writing students to this local restaurant — we come to (literally) break
bread and celebrate the end of the semester.
It’s Ethiopian custom to tear off some injera bread (unleavened sourdough
pancake that feels like chewy crumpets) and use it to pinch the mounds of
lentils, beef or chicken with your fingers. “When made with traditional TEFF
flour, injera tastes fluffier in Africa — the climate in Canada makes it turn dry
quickly,” says owner and chef T.G. Halle, who compensates for the weather by
using wheat and barley, making fresh batches daily. Leaving her homeland before
the Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict in 1998, she arrived in Canada as a refugee.
The restaurant reflects regional dishes throughout her country, but one of
her favourites, kitfo, is from the southern region of Gurage. Lean raw beef is
mixed with cayenne pepper, cardamom and then served with cottage cheese, a
replacement for the traditional unpasteurized ayibe cheese, which is illegal in
most parts of Canada. “I like my kitfo raw,” T.G. says, “but many customers prefer
it cooked a little.”
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