Addis Ababa

After lot of unsuccessful attempts finally today I could make it to this Ethiopian restaurent. Someone in office suggested me about this and he added that u get veggie food as well. that made this offer very exciting.

A small restaurent with almost no customers other then one Ethiopian couple having dinner. Place looked very clean and decent with lots of ornaments decorated on walls and different wall hangings about / from Ethiopia. No wonder you can get them in palika bazar also ;).

There were no waiters, just one lady who explained about different dishes, took order, served and she was the chef. I saw her husband, I guess seems he must also be helping her or otherway round .. whatever but she was so Cuteeeee ... so charming, energetic, helpful .. Ahh I love Ethiopian women! (I didnt tell u about my other loves right!)

I know I am suppose to tell about Ethiopian food or restaurent and not just women.
but i cant help ... she was...

We asked her to help us with order, only thing I have heard about that place was their bread / roti which is more like Dosa ;)
She sugested me to try Vegetarian combination which will have lil portion of all veg dishes.


It was surprising they had lot of indian like curies .. which looked same as our daal, sabji etc (indeed they also used same pulses) only difference was what they called spicy was not even close to what we feed to 3/4 years kid ;)

We were not expecting it to taste like PBM (Paneer butter masala) but it was not bad ..and it was worth trying, the Injera is like Steamed Dosa what they serve in Chutneys Hyd. one of my friend left the restuarent without eating as he was unhappy about ethiopian food doesnt have Rice. If they cud cultivate rice in Ethiopia, that beautiful lady wont have such good figure :~

She told me that Injera is made of Teff, which is there cereal and it is so small that 150 grains of teff will be equal to one grain of wheat.
they make some paste like we make for Dosa, and keep it fermenting for 3 days. resulting in this fluffy dosa or uttapa type bread which is quite sour. Which can now be eaten with some 5/6 different kinds of curries they have.

I often admire that most civilizations which are really old their staple diet is pretty much balanced and well combined, they will have proper mix of Carb, protein, fat, fiber, minerals liquid etc. You can see food in north india, south india, Greek food, Middle east, Maxican, European ... exception US .. national diet is Burgers with coke and result is well evident. I many times feel so sad for these people who are suffering from severe obesity and motion disability. but its too late for them to get it corrected.

Anyways, unfortunately I ordered wine also, I got tempted when she asked if i would like to try Ethiopian wine which many people like as it has honey and its mild, I thought atleast this wine might taste good. What tempted me was not her asking me .. but when i heard about honey.. i guessed honey and wine might taste good.

Moral of the story: Never try different kinds of wine, if you dont like one ..you will like none. they all are same, they all taste yakkk, period.

I saw on some channels, to taste wine and experience its aroma, you should smell wine for some time, and then take a small sip from front of your tounge and try to spread it all over ur tounges surface... Buuu huuu huuu I ruined all of my taste buds, luckily it didnt smelled like beer. I tried 3/4 sips and that was enough, I would have prefered drinking Muli ke patte ka juice over this 100 times. seriosly that taste so good if you add some tomatoes, lemon, salt, a lil sugar and boil it for a while.

Nevertheless the vegetables they have used in curries with minimum of chili powder, very less salt, lil oil and lil of turmeric was impressive. but if Ethiopian try our Gol-gappe, samosa ragda, mirchi bajji, swear they might think of modifying their culinary skills. but they cant afford to use so much spicies in their food as they dont have that much water to extinguish fire the next day :), and had they have that much water they would better grow rice for my friend.

Do try if u get chance to visit a Ethiopian Restaurent.
more about this one at Addis Ababa