Hanna’s Gourmet
2864 Adams Ave. (Normal Heights)
619-280-5600
Prices: Breakfast, $5.95 to $10.95; Lunch and dinner, $6.99 to $11.99

Frank Sabatini Jr. | Restaurant Review

Some of life’s best-kept secrets sit right in front of our eyes. Hanna’s Gourmet is a case in point. The eight-table café, soon to double in size, surprises visitors with brilliantly executed international fare that changes continents each week.

Located on well-traversed Adams Avenue, the café’s humble façade is easy to miss, given that it’s partially camouflaged by a few adolescent trees. But step inside and behold a “world tour menu” that has come to include French-style cherry duck breast, Bolivian meat stew, Polish pierogies, Indian curries and other dishes that seem rather ambitious for a neighborhood kitchen.

“We’ve hit about 40 different countries so far,” said Hanna Tesfamichael, who launched the café last year with her husband Daniel Tekle, after wowing customers through a catering business that she still maintains. Aside from studying food and nutrition at San Diego State University, from which she graduated, Tesfamichael dug her roots in pastry during a mentorship at Opera Patisserie. She also worked as a nutrition counselor for Jenny Craig, but said she ultimately absorbed the art of cooking while growing up in the East African country of Eritrea, considered a crossroads for some of the world’s best spices.

Ethiopia was the featured country when a friend and I visited, with Indonesia running next, until Sunday, Nov. 11. The countries are individually spotlighted from Wednesdays to Sundays before Tesfamichael meticulously researches the following week’s culinary destination. In any given month, she circles the globe.

“I have a whole wall of cookbooks at home,” she said as we slurped ferociously on East African-inspired black bean soup fortified with a little ground beef, carrots and a bouquet of herbs. A touch of cayenne pepper in the recipe added a kick that goes missing in Mexican versions. Lamb and potato stew was also among the Ethiopian specials, but we proceeded instead to the regular menu, which carries cosmopolitan flair as well.

Our second stop was Morocco, via an airline cut of chicken breast and wing, with skin on, draped in an apricot sauce that epitomized the rapport between fruits and savories. Served over fluffy rice with a few black olives, the interplay of spices that surfaced was both restrained and sensational.

Ditto for our ensuing dishes, which included lasagna like you’d find in Milan, with a 50-50 ratio of herby béchamel sauce and marinara. The sheet pasta remained light and pliant amid layers of ricotta cheese, ground beef and roasted eggplant. Italian heart and soul was wholly achieved, offering a balanced flavor profile of basil, tomatoes and nutmeg.

Seared, juicy salmon served over ribbons of rice noodles might fool you into thinking that a Japanese chef is hiding in the kitchen. Tesfamichael uses sesame oil to give the fish its crispy sheath while tinting the noodles green with judicious measures of cilantro pesto. Across the menu, the dishes pay respect to the countries they represent without missing the mark. If Tesfamichael adds any twists, such as turning Polish dumplings into a casserole, they are largely structural rather than flavor altering.

Her scratch-made desserts are equally masterful and colorfully displayed. After forking through multiple courses, I normally doggie bag the sweet endings and analyze them later. Impossible here. One bite of berry-covered tres leches cake spiked with rum lead to another before chomping into a slice of carrot cake infused with ginger, and then chocolate mousse cake containing bourbon-soaked cherries.

“They all taste and look like something from a La Jolla pastry shop,” my friend said as we entered one of the best food comas I’ve experienced in a while.

We concurred that the café’s lack of flash and pretense doesn’t fit the high quality of the food, which is exactly what makes Hanna’s Gourmet so special. The only thing missing is beer and wine, which Tesfamichael said is coming very soon.