Ethiopia

This weekend I decided it had been a while since I’d had any food from Africa and I had seen something about a new Ethiopian place opening just a few weeks ago so I took the culinary passport to Abugida Ethiopian Café.

The restaurant is in what used to be a house with 2 parking places in front and a lot of parking in the back.  There was only one car in the lot when I got there and I wondered if they might be closed but it just turned out they weren’t busy.  I walked in and there was just a guy playing with his baby at the register and he called the young lady who waited on me.  Everything was freshly painted and they have décor that let’s you know it is an African restaurant plus they play African music.  The menu is not extensive being just one page with both meat and vegetarian options but it is all ethnic so don’t expect to get the kids a chicken nugget meal.

The young lady who took my order asked if I’d had Ethiopian before to make sure I knew about injera and offered to answer any question.  I decided to go with the Doro Wet which is the spicier of the two doro dishes.

So just up front they don’t bring silverware, you eat the meal with the injera bread by tearing off a chunk and scooping up food.  I’m sure they would have brought some if requested but it’s not provided normally.  The doro wet is a chicken leg in a gravy made from herbed butter, onion, garlic, berbere spices, and other stuff and a boiled egg for good measure.  The white pile on the side is aybe, an Ethiopian homemade cottage cheese.  When she brought the plate she carefully spooned the chicken leg and egg onto the injera and covered them in the sauce and left the balance of the sauce in the little pot.  The spoon in the pot actually looked like it was made from animal horn but I didn’t confirm that.

A nice thing about this place is in addition to the injera the food is served on they also bring an extra one rolled up so you have plenty to scoop and eat with.  The chicken was very tender and the egg was suitably eggy but the sauce is where all the flavor is in this dish and it is tasty and just spicy enough that I broke a light sweat before I finished.  The aybe had a nice mild cheese taste, frankly better than any cottage cheese I’ve had from a store.  At first I was skeptical that one chicken leg and an egg were going to be sufficient to the task but I was stuffed by the time I got though and had my coffee.

This was the set up I could see across the room plus a cappuccino machine to the right that didn’t make the picture.  Honestly I expected to get some strong black coffee but that was not the deal when I agreed I wanted the Ethiopian coffee.

What happened was they came to what I thought was just a display in the corner that you see below and grabbed a cup and saucer went to the back and 10-15 minutes later I was served up a little pot of coffee plus a little brazier that had some resinous incense sprinkled on an ember.

The coffee was stronger than your average American cup of joe and while sugar was provided dairy was not part of the standard setup.  I was offered milk if needed but I declined.  I sat and enjoyed a couple of tiny cups of coffee and wondered why this place wasn’t busier.  I enjoyed the food and coffee but honestly what made the biggest impression was the people.  While I was there I had my main server but there were three other people, not counting the baby, who worked there or at least passed through the dining room and every single one of them asked if I needed anything or if they could do something for me.  Very warm and welcoming and all from Ethiopia from what I could discern.

If you don’t mind getting a little handsy with your food I’d recommend trying this place out.

In case you missed it the first time here is the Tell Me More page for Ethiopia.