The City Grit Dinner of Hiyaw Gebreyohannes

Tim Tim Salad: Heirloom Tomatoes, Kale, Crispy Injera, Roasted Peppers, Jalapeño aioli with Avocado Compote Hiyaw Gebreyohannes who cooked his style of Ethiopian food at City Grit on March 27.

Kitfo: Steak Tartar, Fresh Cottage Cheese, Collard Greens

Preparing the Foie Gras

 Hiyaw Gebreyohannes and his team in the kitchens at City Grit

Above: The Injera (is a yeast-risen flatbread with a unique slightly spongy texture, traditionally made out of teff flour, is a national dish in Ethopia and Eritrea.) Below: Plantains and Ginger: Ginger Elixir, Plantains, Honey wine ice Cream

Chef Hiyaw Gebrayohannes doesn’t know if it was a conscious thing to start selling the food he grew up with, but he thinks it was more instinct, probably. The moment of clarity was sitting in his parents restaurant in Michigan and seeing his dad cooking, and his mom trying to convince him to stay in Michigan and run the business and him arguing with them and saying they should “just package the food and sell it like that”, and when he went home that night, he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind. Now Hiyaw runs Taste of Ethopia, which currently has 7 cuisines to go, and if you go to the hot bar at Wholefoods in the North-East region you can pick his food straight up and dine on it at home.

This last week, March 27, Hiyaw cooked at City Grit. City Grit is the brain child of chef, Sarah Simmons and her business partner Jeremie Kittredge, and it’s housed in a phenomenal space—an old school house In Nolita, that’s an antique store by day, and a restaurant by night (guests have been known to purchase the furniture, and lighting fixtures between entree and main). The place features supper-club style dinners, and a guest-chef series of well-known and emerging chefs. This means that the menu gets to change frequently, and organically, and in the larger picture, it gives an opportunity for emerging chef’s to be able to showcase their (maybe, unseen) culinary work.

Hiyaw wanted to make all the dishes to have the ability to be served with the Injera. (Injera is a yeast-risen flatbread with a unique slightly spongy texture, traditionally made out of teff flour, is a national dish in Ethopia and Eritrea.) And that worked. The menu was inspired from his travels within Africa and his childhood dinners. He wanted to create something that was authentic to the flavors but yet have a beautiful presentation.

Photographer Matthew Cylinder went along and photographed Hiyaw a few hours before the event...

--------------------------------------------------- 

Taste of Ethiopia has currently 7 cuisines you can pick up in New York and eat at home: Misir (spicy red lentils), Kik (Yellow Split Peas), Gomen (Collard Greens), Yatikilt (cabbage and Carrots) Injera (Ethiopian Flat Bread), Dora Wet (Spicy Chicken) and Loze Wet (Peanut Chicken) at Wholefoods, Fairway, Park Slope Food Coop, Westerly market, Union Market Brooklyn, Foragers City Grocer, Brooklyn Fare, and more. And how do they taste? The food is restaurant grade, and it has such a depth of flavor, it’s filling and also reasonably priced. I like to pick up the Misir (really spicy! red lentils), the Kik (Yellow Split Peas) and the Gomen (Collard Greens) and mix them together. Of course Ethiopian food gets obvious comparisons to Indian food because of the similar heat and spices, but this feels a less fatty, but still spicy version of an Indian take-away, and 5 out of the 7 options are vegan! I don’t know of any other dishes of this calibre that you can pick up, sup on for a couple of days, and still feel really good about what you’re eating. I even froze some leftovers and they re-heated up just fine.

---------------------------------------------------

To check out more about Chef and Owner Hiyaw Gebreyohannes Taste of Ethiopia, click here.

To learn about City Grit, click here.

---------------------------------------------------

PHOTOGRAPHED BY MATTHEW CYLINDER 

MATTHEW CYLINDER is a photographer and artist based in Brooklyn, NY. When he's not eating whole mangoes, or whole loaves of bread, you can find him with a Sharpie in hand sketching surreal images that enlighten some, and scare others. Check out his work here.

Ex-Top Chef Ty-lör's New Dinner Series in New York (Asian BBQ!).

Ty-lör Boring has had trouble with his name and I know this, because my name is Dim and my whole life people have been teasing me because Dim means 'not very bright' and that's just the start of it. Most people think my name (Dimity Jones) sounds like a man's name, I've sat outside many an interview waiting room, as they scratch their heads, is that really Dimity Jones?

Ty-lör Boring, too, unlike his name, is also anything but boring. He's fun, animated, wicked smart, and he's no johnny-come-lately, either. He's been cooking in different spots, for the last nineteen years, in twenty, or so countries, and on 4 different continents, which has given him, amongst other things, the resources to pull flavors from an extensive travel resume and merge them into his current venture, a 'Pop Up' type restaurant called TBD, (TBD's is a rather tongue in cheek name, obviously meaning 'to be decided' a reference to the fact that he hasn't decided what to name his new future restaurant and a also a play off his name Ty-lor Boring's Dinners-TBD.)

Ty-lör's 'pop up' will consist of three consecutive dinners, held next week here, in New York City at a place called City Grit. City Grit is the brain child of chef, Sarah Simmons and her business partner Jeremie Kittredge, and it's housed in a phenomenal space—an old school house In Nolita, that's an antique store by day, and a restaurant by night (guests have been known to purchase the furniture, and lighting fixtures between entree and main). The place features supper-club style dinners, and a guest-chef series of well-known and emerging chefs. This means that the menu gets to change frequently, and organically, and in the larger picture, it gives an opportunity for emerging chef's to be able to showcase their (maybe, unseen) culinary work.

Ty-lör will be serving a multi-course tasting menu of Asian BBQ flavors, and it's really a preview of the type of food he hopes to set up in his future restaurant. He's hoping backers will come to his dinner, (and I hope so too!) taste his food, and get behind him. The idea of BBQ comes from his roots. Ty was raised in Kansas City, Missouri, (Ty's brother has an extensive BBQ background, having been associated with places like Jack Stack Barbeque, and Oklahoma Joe's) and the Asian comes from the fact that he's been involved and moved by the Asian culture, and food, at several different times of his life. (when he was child, he had a Japanese Nanny who cooked recipes from her homeland for him, he also spent time in Hawaii, and, for 3 months he worked at a friend's mother's food stall, on the streets of Bangkok.) It's Asian street food, + BBQ, combined, but it's not really fusion, but more of a focus on hyper-local cuisine. A gathering of spices from the Issan region of North-East Thailand, or a daikon pickle recipe that comes direct from the Kagoshima prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan, for instance. It's fascinating stuff.

These dinners will mark Ty-lör's second foray into the world of 'pop up'. His first was when he cooked 6 nights straight for fashion week back in February. He had just gotten off Top Chef (Ty was a contestant on Top Chef's last season, the one based in Texas), and was eager to get back into cooking again. The dinners were a sold out immediately. A huge success.

This Wednesday, photographer Justin Walker and I decided to stop by City Grit and surprise Ty as he was prepping and and planning for his dinners next week. We got to hang out, shoot, and taste two of the dishes that he was concepting:

1) Crispy Duck Fat Chicken with Kale Coleslaw and Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce. The chicken is brined in salted water, then crisped up in duck fat. (Ty keeps both duck and bacon fat on hand in in kitchen at all times.) The spice blend for the chicken is from the Issan region of North-East Thailand, from a village called Si Saket. The chicken is served with a miso-based coleslaw that has 2, or 3 different kinds of Kale, Chinese Chives and White Miso. The sauce is a bright orange, spicy/sweet combo of spicy Sriracha, thick Orange Marmalade and Honey. 

2) Country Style Pork Ribs with Black Eyed Pea Pit Beans and Tamarind Glaze: The ribs were moist, tender with crispy edges.The spice blend for the ribs is a hybrid of techniques from neighborhoods around Kansas City, Missouri, using Pan-Asiatic ingredients. Ty makes up a stock with a Ham Hock and Bacon, and flavors it with Lapsang souchong tea, then he cooks the Black Eyed Peas in the stock and adds them to the dish for earthiness. The glaze on the top is sticky and delicious. It's fragrant, flaunting both smoke and star anise. 

The dishes were vibrant, spicy, with such depth of flavor, and held tastes that I had never ever tried before. I couldn't stop eating them! These dinners next week will also give Ty the opportunity to head out of the kitchen, and talk the guests through the Asian BBQ maze, describing the spices, discussing the flavors and answering questions. A lot of people attending these dinners, will be trying this kind of food for the first time; a wonderful and unique opportunity.

I strongly suggest you get down there.

---------

I've been told (at the time of posting this) that there are still seats available: To get ticket's to Ty-lör Boring's TBD Dinners, next week in New York, click here. To get more info on Ty-lör Boring and his work, click here. To learn about City Grit, click here.

---------

Pics: (1) Ty preps the Kale Coleslaw for the Crispy Duck Fat Chicken; (2) Ty-lör Boring; (3) Crispy Duck Fat Chicken with Kale Coleslaw and Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce; (4) Ty; (5) Country style Pork Ribs with Black Eyed Peas Pit Beans and Tamarind Glaze. (6, 7, 8) Prepping.

---------

PHOTOGRAPHS © JUSTIN WALKER Check out his blog, here. 

JUSTIN WALKER is a travel and food photographer based in Brooklyn. A native to Durango, Colorado, he grew up as a bystander to his families adventures; from commercial salmon, and halibut fishing in Alaska—to big game hunting on a small ranch in Colorado.

---------

Art Direction Dimity Jones. All rights reserved.