Queen of Sheba: an adventure in African dining
A visit to the Queen of Sheba isn't just a meal — it's an adventure.
The restaurant is named for the Biblical Ethiopian queen and serves exotic Ethiopian dishes on a communal serving platter layered with a giant disk of flat bread. Traditionally, the meals are eaten without a fork or plate, but both are available if you ask.
The Queen of Sheba's new location — across from Bowman Field — housed Mazzoni's Oysters Café for decades.
Ethiopian cuisine usually translates into stews, and that's mostly what you get at the Queen of Sheba. The menu boasts authentic doro wot and sega wot, spicy chicken and beef stews, respectively, cooked with onions, garlic, ginger, and a spicy Berbere sauce made from ground red chili peppers.
Not up to so much heat? Choose the mild alicha doro wot or alicha sega wot, in which the chicken or beef slowly braises with onion, potatoes, garlic, ginger and tumeric. All the wots cost $6.99 at lunch and $9–$9.50 at dinner. Only at lunch, you can get spaghetti with meat sauce or spicy chicken pasta, both $7.99.
Other dishes include various sautéed meat tips ($7.99–$8.99 at lunch, $10–$11.50 at dinner) and Ye-Asa Tips, pan-fried tilapia tips served on a bed of carmelized onions ($7.99 for lunch and $11 for dinner).
Additional dishes served only at dinner include the kitfo, a jalapeño-laced steak tartare ($10), and the gored-gored, beef cubes sautéed in a super-spicy Awaze sauce ($11).
Vegetarians will delight in the Queen of Sheba's meatless options, including gomen wot, collard greens, onions and potatoes in a mild garlic sauce ($6.99 at lunch, $8 at dinner); Timatim Fit-Fit, a salad of tomatoes, onions, green peppers and pieces of injera in a lemon dressing ($4.99 at lunch, $6 at dinner); and engudai tips, mushrooms sautéed in butter with onions, garlic and green peppers ($6.99 at lunch, $8 at dinner).
Each meal comes with a house salad with a lemon dressing and a side of kik wot, a spicy, Berbere-infused lentil side dish.
The staff will show you how to tear off strips of the accompanying injera, a spongy, light-textured flat bread thicker than a crepe but thinner than a pancake.
Not feeling adventurous? Just ask, and the staff serve your entrees on individual plates rather than a communal platter and with cutlery. But eating like an Ethiopian provides much of the fun.
A children's menu lists all-American chicken tenders with French fries and macaroni and cheese, both $3.
Desserts include baklava ($3) and cheesecake.
No meal at the Queen of Sheba's complete without thick Ethiopian coffee ($1.75), served in an Ethiopian clay pot. Please allow five to ten minutes for preparation.
The Queen of Sheba's open daily for lunch 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The restaurant opens for dinner Tuesday through Sunday at 5 p.m. It closes Tuesday through Thursday at 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday nights at 10:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9 p.m. There's no dinner on Monday.
- by Ivonne Rovira, Louisville Reporter for HelloMetro
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