Eating Out - Ethiopian

Kathryn with our friends Jim and Kristin.

Etete (Ethiopian)

Remember how I told you that DC is home to the largest population of Salvadorans in the country? Well, the Salvadorans have nothing on the Ethiopians. We've got about 70,000 strong. It's no surprise that we have a lot of Ethiopian restaurants to choose from, and there is quite a debate about which one is the best. A few months ago (before we started this blog) we tried DC's oldest, Zed's in Georgetown. This weekend we went to dinner with a college friend and his girlfriend at Etete in U Street, one of the big three contenders for best Ethiopian restaurant.

Observations

• First thing's first, we all started with a sambusa, a pastry filled with lentils, jalapeños and onions. So far so good.
• We decided to order a bottle of the (we're almost certain homemade) Tej honey wine. It's a wine made from honey, but it has hops. It tasted like old apple cider that was left in the fridge too long. Nobody really liked it, so Jim and I held our noses and took it like a shot.
• After the failed wine, I tried a Harar Ethiopean beer. Pretty decent.
• If you've never had Ethiopian food before, everything is served on this big spongy pancake-like bread called injera. The injera is used to sop up mouthfuls of meat and vegetables with your bare hands. It's meant to be eaten as a group and shared around the table.
• Here's what we had: stewed chicken legs (doro wat), lamb cooked in jalapeños (lega tibs), and a bunch of stewed vegetables (carrots, cabbage, collard greens, lentils, peas, etc) .
• Oh I forgot to mention, we also ate a bunch of seasoned raw ground beef (kitfo). If I didn't know it was raw, I would have had no idea. It was rather tasty once you get used to the fact that it's raw ground beef. (Right now Kathryn's mom just had a minor heart attack. Sorry Fran.)
• For such a nice dinner and plenty of drinks, the food was actually pretty cheap. Not less than a quarter a day cheap, but still.

Tej. First and last.

After dinner we headed to Adams Morgan for a couple of drinks. We started at Dan's Cafe, a rusty shed that sells beer by the bottle, liquor by the pint (with the mixers on the side), and shots in a squeeze bottle. Then we moved on to Millie and Al's which features a giant light bulb. When the bulb is on, jello shots are just a dollar. Nice way to wrap up the night and/or start the morning. Hopefully next time we can do a post about bars, too.