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| - This was our first taste of Ethiopian food, and I will say up front that it's more than just dinner, it's a full experience!
We had a Groupon for dinner here, so we went over early on a Saturday evening (which I recommend - by the time we were done eating around 7, there was a wait for tables). It's BYOB, which we love, and they prepare your bottle for you as soon as you're seated.
We started with the pumpkin soup, which was so creamy and yummy. The serving size on soup is huge - we split a cup, and it was more than enough for each of us. We also got the vegetable sambussa, which is kind of like a samosa, but with lentils instead of regular peas. They give you a spoon for the soup, but the sambussa you eat with your hands, which is just the start of how you will eat your whole meal...
We called it the 'breadfork.' Instead of using any utensils, you use the bread under your food to eat. Basically they serve you what looks like an unbaked pizza crust. It comes out on a big, round silver pan, and the bread (called injera) covers the whole thing. Your food is dumped into little quadrants on the bread. We got the sampler platter, so we got to try a chicken, a beef, and two veggies, although you can mix and match as you please.
There is a roll of injera at one side of the tray, and you can start there to pick up pieces of food. I recommend starting from the outside and working in, so that way you can use the underlying bread for the inside part of the entree. (Hope that makes sense!)
The flavors of the food were awesome. A lot of it was very similar to Indian flavors, lots of garlic, onions, pepper, and basil. Our four options were:
~Doro Minchet Abish, which is a spicy chicken in a traditional 'berbere' sauce. (These terms are all explained in detail on the menu, but 'berbere' is made of ginger, garlic, peppers, basil, and fenugreek.)
~Kay Sir Dinich, which is stewed potatoes and beets with ginger, garlic, and onions.
~Gomen Besiga, cubes of beef in more garlic and onions (love that stuff) with kale.
~Butecha, mashed chickpeas with green peppers, onions, and olive oil, served cold.
All four were awesome! And while it didn't seem like a lot of food, it was quite filling. The injera bread is so spongy and weird, I kept giggling every time I pulled a piece of it off the tray.
We also got a dessert, which was probably not 'authentic' but sooooo good.
We will definitely be back to Abay. It was a lot of fun, and we really liked trying out the new food!
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