Ethiopia House was an interesting experience. I’ve not been exposed much to any kind of true African culture, much less cuisine, so it was with some trepidation that I forced my suddenly heavy feet through the door.
The restaurant is composed of two small seating areas, and I was seated on the lower level. There’s a shelfed recess in the wall that has some presumably African artifacts, and similar paintings on the walls.
After looking at the menu, the first thing I decided was that I would have the coffee. The menu has an entire page devoted to the explanation of Ethiopia coffee, how it’s made, and that it needs 30-45 minutes preparation time! Never mind that it makes about six cups of coffee, I was determined to try it anyway.
Otherwise, I really couldn’t make heads or tails of what to order. So I asked the waitress for advice, and she recommended to me the Vege Beef in a way that indicated she’d been asked this by newbies many times before. I also had some mango (or was it guava?) juice that was quite good (thick).
It took some time before food arrived, but the Vege Beef eventually came:
along with some additional Ethiopia bread (same stuff as what the meat is sitting on):
Diners eat with their hands, so I dug in, tearing off pieces of the spare bread and using it to pick up food while keeping my fingers mostly clean. The bread is definitely sour, though not too strongly, and it’s quite porous – you can see see the holes and how it soaks up the sauce. I didn’t really care for the dish. The beef was somewhat dry and tough. The vegetables were fine, and lettuce with some kind of cheese in the centre was as expected. I did have on amusing mishap, though: I was reading my magazine while eating and scooped up a sliced pepper (seeds and all) as part of my bread-wrapped package. Let me tell you, it took quite a while before that sensation went away, after many glasses of water and eating most of the cheese.
Part way through the meal, the waitress brought out the coffee beans in the small pot they were being roasted in. We were expected to inhale the aroma. Given my hands as they were, I couldn’t get my camera out in time unfortunately. In what looked like a very large ladle, a score of coffee beans were sizzling and smoking quite heavily, generating a very strong coffee smell.
After my vege beef was done, popcorn (quite good) was served, and shortly thereafter the coffee was served. Cups and coffee were brough out on a wooden box/platter. Apparently, pouring the coffee while raising the the pot (thus pouring from a height) is expected and part of the culture?
Here’s a second picture after the serving tray has been removed, with a better view of the coffee “pot”; the container in the back has frankincense:
How was the coffee? Reasonable. It didn’t taste like any of the usual coffee’s I might normally get, and I’m not sure if it was somewhat burnt. I suspect I don’t drink Ethiopia brand coffee beans often enough to really compare.
All in all, I’ll have to try again, but with the vegetarian dish instead. This favourable review piqued my interest initially, and the words are too glowing to match with my experience.
