Hungry City - Ethiopian Lunch Box in Bushwick - NYTimes.com "Is something burning?" someone at my table whispered. We were at Mama Joy's in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a hush-puppies-and-fried-chicken joint whose décor suggested a pause in demolition. One wall was half-scraped-down drywall, half-excavated studs and brick. Holes gaped. The ceiling was papered with wood veneer panels already peeling at the corners. These have since been removed. But it was noon on a Thursday, and Mama Joy's had temporarily turned into a vegan Ethiopian lunch counter. Behind us, a space had been cleared among the tables, and a woman was holding a flat pan filled with coffee beans over a small stove on the floor. When she flicked her wrist, the beans rustled. Since July, Ethiopian Lunch Box has been operating inside Mama Joy's every Tuesday to Friday during daytime hours. In the life of a pop-up restaurant, this is close to permanent. It is a production of the nomadic Bunna Cafe, whose other ventures include a dinner-and-live-music series and a Smorgasburg stall. 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. 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 food arrives in a crowd, on scratched metal platters: a choice of four dishes for $8, seven for $12, or all eight for $14. This last is described on the menu as lunch for two, but there will be leftovers. 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. Underlying all this - literally, as a kind of edible plate beneath the vegetable dishes - is injera, the spongy, semi-sour Ethiopian bread that has a consistency somewhere between Indian dosa and buttermilk pancake. Made from a batter of teff (a nutrient-packed supergrain native to Ethiopia) and a pinch of wheat flour mixed with water and left to ferment overnight, the griddled bread appears almost perforated, pocked with little sinkholes, and smells faintly of beer. Additional rounds of injera are rolled up in fat cylinders like errant burritos. No utensils are provided; you are meant to tear off pieces of the bread to scoop up the food. The tang bolsters the other flavors. Accompanying this are Ethiopian "juices," more properly fruit purées, in pretty layers of mango, avocado and papaya. Be sure to use the lime wedge on the rim to mitigate the drizzle of Vimto, a grape-raspberry-cassis syrup that smacks of Dimetapp. Bunna Cafe was started two years ago by Sam Saverance, a graphic designer who works with African-based companies. He wanted to recreate the aesthetic experience of a meal in Ethiopia. At Mama Joy's, despite the intentionally, aggressively disheveled surroundings, he has mostly succeeded. On a recent visit, toward the end of the meal, the woman roasting coffee beans brought the smoking pan to each table. She wore a T-shirt that said, "Everything is eshi" ("Everything is O.K."). We breathed in, and it was. Ethiopian Lunch Box 1084 Flushing Avenue (Porter Avenue), Bushwick, Brooklyn; 347-295-2227; bunnaethiopia.net. Recommended Misir wot; yeter kik alicha; shiro; duba wot; yesuf fitfit; kedija selata; lunch for two (all eight dishes). Prices $8 (for four dishes) to $14 (for eight), cash only. Open Tuesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Reservations Not accepted. Restroom does not have handrail.