Monday, January 12, 2009

Dining out - Ethiopian food!

I didn't make it, but I ate it, so I'm posting it anyways

We had time for dinner every night with our staffs during training. During the school year we have to be back by 8:00 because an RA needs to go on duty, but the first night back there weren't any students, so we didn't have then 8:00 curfew. So we decided to go to little Ethiopia, and have Ethiopian food!

We went to Merkato at the suggestion of one of my Resident Ministers, who is very familiar with East African food since he lived there for a while. We basically put the ordering in his hands, and were delivered two large platters with all sorts of food.

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The food is served on a pancake-type bread thingie, which has an odd texture because there are a bunch of bubbles in it. There was lamb, chicken, and beef, all with yummy sauces. There were also some vegetarian sides - cabbage, collared greens, peas, and a pico de gallo-type dish.

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You eat it by ripping off some of the pancake-type stuff, and then picking up the food with it. It was communal, so the 9 of us ate off of two platters.

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We ate it all. Then we ate some of the pancake from the bottom, because it had soaked in all the saucey goodness.

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After dinner we had some coffee, which was ridiculously strong. My RM told us that coffee there is a very social thing, and the drinking can go on all night with the same beans, the coffee getting weaker as the night progresses.

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They were the teeny-sized cups, but we're not all coffee drinkers, so a few of us shared cups. One of our RAs had about 4 cups.

We only had one pot, and it did not get weaker with every drink.

It was very strong coffee.

He was up all night.

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