African Harambee makes broad range of cuisine much more accessible

Africa ... the Dark Continent.

To most of us, it's still a pretty mysterious place: exotic, unknown, rich in history and folklore. We know it mainly from books and movies, legends of big-game hunters, brave tribesmen and wild animals.

Its food culture is even more obscure. Edgar Rice Burroughs told us that Tarzan ate raw meat, beetles, rodents and caterpillars, but he rarely touched on how native Africans dined, and then most unrealistically.

Many of the Chicago-area restaurants serving African fare seem nearly as unknowable: tiny, sometimes shabby storefronts, largely serving a taste of home to immigrants. Even if we are brave enough to get past that off-putting "this is our private hangout" air, we find the menus (when they exist) bewildering.

So we were excited at the opening of African Harambee, a tasty new pan-African restaurant on the Chicago/Evanston border that makes the cuisine more accessible.

"Harambee," a Swahili word, meaning "let's pull together; a call for unity," was employed as a motto by Kenya's late President Jomo Kenyatta in the wake of that country's independence. Here, it signifies the broad range of African regions, "from Casa Blanca to Cape Town. From the land of Sheba to the Ashanti Kingdom" represented on the menu.

The bright, clean, spacious restaurant occupies half of the Rogers Park building that used to be Gateway Bar & Grill (and before that, My Place For ?), alongside the spiffy Gateway Centre shopping plaza. The decor, down to the nautically themed chairs, appears largely unchanged from the Gateway, with the addition of a few African art items and, under glass on each pristinely white-clothed table, colorful charts depicting the flags and a few facts on 53 African nations and maps of the continent.

Sisay Abebe, a founder of Ethiopian Diamond restaurant in Edgewater, launched this eclectic African spot over the summer, with partner chef Martha Yimer. Their menu clearly spells out ingredients in each dish, often, though not always, targeting the recipe's origins. I could wish for a little more detail on the lore and traditions of the various items, but Abebe, the gracious host and headwaiter, is most helpful with explanations.

The appetizers dubbed "African summer rolls" I guess are an original creation: Egg-roll wrappers rolled around a pleasantly seasoned filling of ground beef (or chicken or a lentil, potato and carrot mixture) and fried till crisp, served with a sweet-sour plum sauce for dipping. These could be pretty addictive. There's also lightly peppery Malindi lentil soup, from the Kenyan island, a flavorful broth chock-full of whole lentils and diced carrots.

Stews comprise the bulk of the entrees, and many offer a choice of beef, chicken or lamb as the main ingredient. (No game or exotic meats, not even goat, here.) A handful of seafood items, made from shrimp, tilapia or both, and a number of vegetarian options fill out the main-course list.

Each comes with a couple of vegetable sides that apparently vary from day to day -- in our case it was collard greens and yemisir watt, Ethiopian red-lentil stew -- plus a choice of chapatti (a wheat-based flatbread), injera (a spongy, sour, pancake-like Ethiopian flatbread made from an indigenous millet), rice, couscous or ugali (a thick, stiff West African cornmeal mush somewhat akin to grits -- bland, but a good foil for the flavorful stews). You're meant to eat the starch and stew together in one bite. Traditionally, one tears off a scrap of flatbread or balls the ugali up and uses it as a scoop. Here, you may use a fork to combine a bit of each.

Rich and delicious peanut stew (or groundnut stew, as it would be called in West Africa), shows the heights of African cuisine with morsels of beef (or chicken or lamb), green bell peppers and onions swimming in a thick, creamy and nutty sauce lightly but effectively seasoned with chilies and garlic -- reminiscent of Thai-style satay. I mopped up every drop.

On the lighter side, che bu gen, Senegelese fish and rice, features bite-sized shrimp and cubes of flaky tilapia in a zesty tomato sauce seasoned with garlic, cilantro and a bit of hot pepper over a bed of white rice.

Other options include spicy sub-Saharan piri-piri dishes with marinated meat or seafood in a fiery tomato-based sauce; a South African dried-fruit-and-meat curry; and Jollof rice, a West African specialty, a melange of green peppers, onions, tomatoes and rice seasoned with lemon, thyme, garlic and bay leaves, with your choice of meat.

Spicy tilapia and tomato stew and Cameroon shrimp and rice in peanut sauce also feature, and meatless choices include arroz de coco, rice cooked in coconut milk with tomatoes and chilies; spinach stew; and a vegetable tagine.

Desserts vary daily. There were two available on our visit -- a creamy orange sherbet served in a hollowed out orange shell, and the Harambee dessert, a delightful, if diminutive, triangle of crispy dough filled with a mixture of almonds, pistachios, dried fruits and chocolate and drizzled with chocolate sauce.

African Harambee offers a full bar. There's a modest list of South African and California wines, too.

Prices run a bit higher than one might expect from a store-front operation, but nothing is more than $15, so that's no excuse not to safari through African Harambee's menu.

African Harambee

7537 N. Clark St., Chicago, (773) 764-2200

Cuisine: Pan-African

Setting: Bright, spacious white-tablecloth spot on the Chicago/Evanston border

Price range: Appetizers $3 to $4.50; entrees $10 to $15; desserts $5; wine $23 to $29 by the bottle

Hours: Noon to 10:30 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays; noon to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Accepts: Major credit cards; reservations for six or more

Also: Full bar; free parking in adjoining lot; lunch specials: noon to 3 p.m. weekdays