Sunday, January 6, 2008

Vegan Dad on the Road: Meskerem

I have dabbled with Ethiopian food in the past, so I wanted to go to a real Ethiopian place to see what the food is supposed to taste like (and to see what injera is supposed to be like). This place was recommended in the Veg-DC book I picked up at Sticky Fingers and was a 10 minute walk from the hotel. I went with two friends from grad school and we decided to share a large platter of veggie dishes. The setup was neat--chairs around a very small, low, round table on which the food is placed. There was no cutlery, so we all dipped into the food with bits of injera, all sharing from the same common plate. There were two lentil dishes, one warm and one cold, that were exquisitely spiced. There were cold potato and tomato salads, and two vegetable stews. We were stuffed to the brim and could not even finish it all. I hope I can find some teff flour at home to make injera--as it turns out, the recipe I made from Vegan Lunchbox is almost exactly the same as the injera they served at Meskerem.