Our search for Ethiopian food led us to Queen of Sheba on 10th Avenue. We selected this restaurant because it is one of the few places in NYC that actually serves food at mesobs --traditional Ethiopian wicker tables.
JEREMY:
We sat down at the mesob (table) and the waitress came over and took the lid off the table. All that was inside was napkins. We really didn't know much about the cuisine of Ethiopia but we knew we had to eat with our right hand and use injera, a sourdough-flavored spongy crepe, to scoop up the food.
Ethiopian cuisine is known for its spicy wot (stew) and injera. So we wanted to make sure we ordered that. To start, we had timatim fitfit, diced tomatoes, peppers with lemon juice and oil -- and of course, injera. It was served on a plate with two dollops of "fitfit." At first, it was pretty good but I learned that you get pretty tired, pretty quickly of eating injera.
Next came the wot. We ordered meat and vegetable samplers. The waitress arrived with a big platter with little dollops of a lot of different foods -- and of course, more injera, which I was really getting tired of. The platter included two lamb stews, a beef stew and some ground beef stew. It also included a bunch of different vegetarian dishes like collard greens and a string bean stew, which was my favorite. There was also lentil, cabbage and chickpea stews.
I was surprised that the food had so much flavor since Ethiopia is such a poor country -- one of the poorest in the world. But they use a mixture in all the red dishes called berbere, which combines red pepper and 20 other spices and onions. The flavors were very complex.
You definitely need to have more experience eating different kinds of food if you're going to enjoy Ethiopian cuisine.
I will say that eating with one's hand was a definite bonus to our meal. And my mom never scolded me about not using a fork at the table.
Will I eat Ethiopian food again? The world may never know.
MARCI:
It was interesting to eat at a restaurant knowing so little about the culture, the cuisine or, for that matter, the country. Before we left our house, we did a little on-line research and learned that Ethiopia is the third largest country in Africa. It's also the oldest nation in Africa dating back as early as 1100 BC. And it's where anthropologists found Lucy, the 3.2 million year old homonid skeleton.
Sadly, we also learned that Ethiopia is one of the poorest nations in the world: 23% of the population live on less than $1 per day. Only 22% of the population have access to safe drinking water and 38% of children under 10 are moderately or severely underweight.
Knowing this made it a little strange to sit and eat such a big meal so when we got home we decided to donate money to A Glimmer of Hope, a charity that is helping to build wells in small Ethiopian villages, among other things.
I think both Jeremy and I were surprised at the intensity of the flavors we tasted. The berbere was as complex as a well-prepared Mexican mole. It was fun to watch him experiment with such a unique cuisine. And I was pleasantly surprised when my little carnivore told me his favorite dish was the string beans. I, too preferred the vegetable dishes; my favorite dish was the shiro, a puree of split peas mixed with berbere.
A highlight of the meal was when Jeremy rolled some wot in injeera and proceded to stuff it in my mouth. This is called a goorsha, an act of friendship. The bigger the goorsha, the stronger the friendship.
After using our hand and injeera to eat the food, I was very glad when the wet naps arrived with our check. No desserts had been delivered so we couldn't sample an Ethiopian sweet. What I was really looking forwared to was a cup of Ethiopian Yrgicheffe coffee. Something else I didn't know about Ethiopia was that the hot drink originated in this African nation. As we were heading home, we spied Amy's Bread. Jeremy had a chocoholic stick and I had a house blend to go.
Queen of Sheba
650 Tenth Avenue
(between 45th and 46th Street)
212 397-0610
www.shebanyc.com
