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Ethiopian food
Today I had lunch with some former coworkers at Abay, an Ethiopian restaurant in East Liberty. This was my first visit to an Ethiopian restaurant, and I would gladly have further encounters with the cuisine and with this particular restaurant.
They offer sampler platters of the "choose N from column A" variety, and after trying to decide how to populate several, we finally said to our waiter: "Can you just bring us four samplers, two vegetarian and two not, using your best judgement?" This worked very well; I got to sample eight different vegetarian dishes, and while I can't name any of them, I'd be able to identify most of them on a future visit. The spicy dish with red lentils was especially tasty.
Everything comes served on bread -- a large, flat, thin, doughy bread covers the plate and then they pile the food on top of that. (They brought us extra bread on the side, too.) Trenchers, but with less structural support. Sops, perhaps. The bread was nice on its own but better covered in the juices and sauces from the rest of the food.
Their tea was nice, too. I usually don't particularly notice tea, but I guess this was spiced a little or something.
Service was good, even with our large group. They actually had a round table that could seat a dozen, and that was more pleasant than sitting at chain of two-person tables.
We were running short on time and thus skipped dessert, but I noticed several interesting options there. I would have gotten the ginger sherbet if we'd stayed.
They offer sampler platters of the "choose N from column A" variety, and after trying to decide how to populate several, we finally said to our waiter: "Can you just bring us four samplers, two vegetarian and two not, using your best judgement?" This worked very well; I got to sample eight different vegetarian dishes, and while I can't name any of them, I'd be able to identify most of them on a future visit. The spicy dish with red lentils was especially tasty.
Everything comes served on bread -- a large, flat, thin, doughy bread covers the plate and then they pile the food on top of that. (They brought us extra bread on the side, too.) Trenchers, but with less structural support. Sops, perhaps. The bread was nice on its own but better covered in the juices and sauces from the rest of the food.
Their tea was nice, too. I usually don't particularly notice tea, but I guess this was spiced a little or something.
Service was good, even with our large group. They actually had a round table that could seat a dozen, and that was more pleasant than sitting at chain of two-person tables.
We were running short on time and thus skipped dessert, but I noticed several interesting options there. I would have gotten the ginger sherbet if we'd stayed.
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I usually treat lentils as something to combine with onions, garlic, and maybe tomatoes, and/or something to apply curry to. I hadn't thought about using Italian herbs. Thanks for the suggestion.