Vegan Dinner at Bunna Cafe: New York's First All-Vegan Ethiopian Restaurant!

Come any time between 6:30pm and 9:30pm, stay as long as you want, or leave when you need to. Everyone pays for their own dinner.

For three years, a tantalizingly delicious all-vegan Ethiopian "pop up" cafe has been surfacing throughout NYC (mostly in Brooklyn), and now has a devoted following of vegan and non-vegan fans who -- until now -- used to have to anxiously wait for their beloved cafe to "pop up" once more.

The wait is now over! With the help of a successful $15,000 Indiegogo campaign to put the finishing touches on their NEW, PERMANENT home, Bunna Cafe is now open to the public in their BEAUTIFUL RESTAURANT, seven days a week!

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From Bunna Cafe's Facebook page:

Bunna Cafe is a new Ethiopian Vegetarian Restaurant, Coffeehouse, and Music Venue.

What do you get from a Bunna event? For one, food -- lots of it. Healthy, tasty, gourmet vegan Ethiopian food. And, you get to experience the coffee ceremony, which involves making coffee from raw bean to powerful aromatic brew and every single amazing smell, sight, taste that goes with it.

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What is this special "coffee ceremony"? From Bunna's web site:

Bunna = Coffee

Coffee is everything in Ethiopia. Not only does it drive the economy, but it drives everyday life. Ethiopians drink coffee multiple times a day, be it as an espresso,cortado, or through the traditional coffee ceremony -- the intricate, intimate process of making coffee from raw bean to brew while bringing people together in conversation and celebration as the process develops. We perform the coffee ceremony regularly at our events, and we serve Bunna (coffee) for free to our guests.

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The New York Times also explains the coffee ceremony: "Bunna is the Amharic word for coffee, which in Ethiopia is celebrated with an elaborate ceremony, re-enacted here in leisurely detail: pan-roasting the beans, crushing them with a mortar and pestle, stirring the grounds in a clay pot with cardamom and cloves, and finally pouring the coffee from a height into tiny cups."

Also from The New York Times: "The chef, Kedija Srage, grew up in Ethiopia. Her dishes here reflect a long tradition of vegan cooking in that country, where the Ethiopian Orthodox Church requires abstinence from meat and dairy for about 165 days a year.

"The dishes benefit from juxtaposition. Gomen, a loose collection of steamed kale and carrots, would be merely pious without the racy proximity of misir wot, a smolder of red lentils in berbere, a spice mixture dominated by fenugreek, cinnamon and chile, raw heat striped with bitter and sweet.

"Berbere is a happily recurring motif, a darting pulse in a thick sauce over firm pumpkin cubes and a low thrum in a mash of yellow split peas mellowed by tomato and turmeric. Its telltale dark crimson color marks shiro, a daub of ground chickpeas swirled with cooked-down garlic, onions and ginger until it is oddly airy, akin to soft-serve.

At some Ethiopian restaurants, the food can have a disconcerting uniformity of texture: various degrees of slurry. Ms. Srage has a gift for counterpoint. In keysir selata, beets, carrots and potatoes are sautéed but still sturdy; kale, simply tossed with lime and olive oil, is crisp and bright."

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In their recent article entitled "The 25 Best Things We Ate and Drank In NYC In 2013", Gothamist writes about Bunna Cafe: "the heaping portions of fiery, fresh-tasting vegetables and legumes they serve will hook you right off the bat."

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For those of you who have never attended one of our Meetup events: this is an incredibly friendly & welcoming group. It will be easy to find our group: most people in the restaurant will be us. (Or just ask any waitperson where our group is.) Everyone pays for themselves. Easy!

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Train Directions: Take the L Train to Morgan Ave. (and walk three tenths of a mile), or the J or M Trains to Flushing Ave. (and walk eight tenths of a mile).

Check out the great video on Bunna's Indiegogo page: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bunna-cafe-is-going-permanent-ethiopia-in-bushwick-bk

Our group is thrilled to see New York City getting it's very first all-vegan Ethiopian restaurant! And the cherry on the top is that it is our friends at Bunna Cafe, with their amazingly delicious food!

Please join us as we welcome the all-vegan Bunna Cafe to New York, and celebrate the opening of their new home.with a delectable dinner.

David

Come any time between 6:30pm and 9:30pm, stay as long as you want, or leave when you need to. Everyone pays for their own dinner.