Authentic Ethiopian

To be honest, although I really like it now, I wasn’t a huge fan of Ethiopian food when i first tried it… i found the tastes completely different to what i would expect – but the atmosphere of going to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant is a lot of fun… I had to go again before leaving just to get the ‘authentic’ ethiopian, that everyone keeps telling they aren’t hearing from my emails!

Basically you sit on stools around a small hourglass shaped table made out of wicker and about a foot and a half high. on top of the table is tray with what looks like a cloth draped over it.  Except, it is not a cloth, but ‘injera’ – a local pancake like bread. Imagine a crepe, but instead of sweet, it’s sour as if it was made with sourdough… Ethiopia is the only place that is able to make proper injera by ‘tef’ wheat, which they claim to be some sort of youth elixer, but i don’t know how true that it is… in fact, i hear that people actually get a lot of bad side effects from eating too much…

Well on top of the injera, they pile a load of different types of stew like dishes called ‘wat’ – different types like spinach wat, doro (Chicken) wat – the best one is one called shiro.  It’s made from chickpeas and is bright orange (i don’t really understand how…) and sometimes it has lamb mixed into it –  I could eat it for days…. Basically to eat the food, you rip a piece of the injera and use it to scoop up some of the curry, kinda like you would with a Naan or tortilla. So you basically are eating family style with everyone eating from the same tray and competing to finish everything off… it’s actually kinda funny when it comes down to the last bits of the good stuff… kinda like when you have a last piece of pizza and everyone is trying to take it without seeming to quick!

but you gotta be careful with the sharing… Ethiopians are fine, but some expats, don’t seem to know how to keep their food in their mouth… one time i was eating and the guy next to me was talking away, and the whole time you could see piece spilling from his mouth and back into the shared plate… i felt like i was in an episode of seinfeld… I just kept shaking my head when asked to eat more…