A feast for the senses: Chef Seble Yemenu serves up Ethiopian excellence inspired by her childhood

Clay Pot Ethiopian Cuisine

LOCATION: 5645 Paradise Blvd. NW, claypotnm.com, 505-485-9540

HOURS: 4-9 p.m. or until sold-out Saturday and Thursday; buffet most Tuesdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; check hours on social media for special events and hours

Taste buds awaken as fragrant aroma gently tickles your olfactory senses as you enter Clay Pot Ethiopian Cuisine, located in a small strip mall just north of Paradise Drive on Albuquerque’s far West Side.

At long last, Albuquerque has a brick-and-mortar Ethiopian restaurant. In my more than half-century visiting and living here, this is the first place that gives more than just a taste of African flavors.

It seems to live up to its name with the food tasting like it just emerged from steaming clay pots after being lovingly cooked all day.

It does not have an extensive printed menu, and my family dinner for two with multiple dishes and two injera breads was less than $50 with tip and taxes. It provided enough food for at least three hungry eaters.

Drinks were listed on a chalkboard in both English and in Amharic script.

Ethiopian food has some familiar flavors to stews such as carne guisada, with hints of cumin and peppers. If you like Asian Indian food or Mexican stews, you need to give it a taste. The injera bread, which serves as both a foundation of the meal and as silverware. Injera is a made of teff flour and its fermentation makes it spongy and slightly sour. Clay Pot’s chef offers lessons in making the staple of Ethiopian meals.

A bit of warning for those trying to find the restaurant: the building is not directly on Paradise Boulevard. It is tucked back in a strip mall behind what looks like a former Circle K on the north side of the road. Don’t miss the turn in driveway at the Paradise Hills Business Center sign like I did when Siri’s countdown took me zipping past. The strip mall and restaurant are about a football field’s length away from the road.

The small restaurant was nearly full on a Saturday night, and I ordered a family platter that included meat and vegetable dishes to go. Clay Pot offers both regular tables and an area where you can sit in the traditional fashion — with cushions on the floor to share your communal meal.

The menu changes often and is usually limited to a few dishes. Some nights include only vegetarian or vegan, but even on nights when meat bubbles in the kitchen, you can request a meatless meal.

I was there on the last day of February, and the family platter included a red chili lamb dish, spicy green kale, a beef dish and a cabbage dish.

Ethiopian food revolves around injera. Customarily a family platter has a base of injera with mounds of flavorful dishes on top. Hungry eaters, tear off pieces of the bread and create mini burrito-like rolls eaten without silverware using your right hand.

The dishes I sampled exploded with flavors — spicy, sweet, sour and salty.

Each unique taste lingers in a pleasant way, slightly burning long after the bite finishes performing a dance along your tongue and lips.

Ethiopian spice blends often include garlic, cumin, ginger, coriander, cinnamon and fenugreek, according to TasteAtlas, but my palate is not advanced enough to detect these as distinct flavors. I just enjoyed the variety of heat, sweet and sour in each of the dishes.

Clay Pot brought me back to previous times I had sampled Ethiopian cuisine. Restaurants that serve these African delicacies used to only be in cosmopolitan cities. In the early 1990s I dined at Zed’s, near the foreign embassies in Washington, D.C., sharing a low table with cushions for chairs with a group of journalists from the American Press Institute who had spent time in Africa.

If you enjoy hearty Southern Indian or Sichuan Chinese food, the flavors and spicing of the dishes will delight.

Clay Pot is not open daily as of now, serving inside and on its patio on Friday, Saturday and Tuesday. Be sure to check its social media, facebook.com/claypotETcuisine, for menus, special events, cooking classes, music and more.

Clay Pot is a nibble you must not miss if you crave adventure full of spice and flavor offerings beyond the normal green and red dishes we all love.

The location on Paradise Boulevard on the far West Side of Albuquerque looks like my country house, chef Seble Yemenu told the Journal in an October interview.

“It matches the food I serve, it matches me and so I said, ‘I’m gonna do it.’”

“When I cook food, people always come by,” Yemenu said. “I grew up in Ethiopia, and we had a farm and people always came over to eat.”

Yemenu launched her business in 2021, offering catering and take-out from a North Valley location and adding a food truck before moving west and north. 

Many of Clay Pot’s authentic Ethiopian dishes are vegan and allergy-friendly.