Out to Lunch

Annamarie and I decided to try a new place for lunch today. One of our Ethiopian friends here recommended the Lula restaurant, saying it's got the best Ethiopian food in town (and believe me, there are a LOT of Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurants in town!). So off we went.

The place was pretty full, so the only empty table in the garden sort of area was occupied by... a sleeping man and a turkey. Yes, that's right, a turkey. A real live turkey sat and watched over the guy having his lunch-hour snooze. Odd, and yet, ever so normal for a town like this.

After waving to some Eritreans that I know from the bakery, we made our way past the snoozer and his turkey and sat in the "bar" area. The food actually was quite amazing. We had our usual, shiro and tibs, as this is the measure by which we measure the standards of any new Ethiopian restaurant. And they passed muster for sure! It was delicious - the shiro especially was smooth and creamy, lovely consitency with a hint of garlic. Yum. Definitely worth going back to that placea for. And it was on the cheaper end of Ethiopian restaurants in town, too, which is a definite bonus!

I'm on a roll, too, this week with Ethiopian food - today was the third day this week that I had shiro for lunch! The first day, I made it myself, with some of the powder I brought from Ethiopia. I walked down the street to the local "Ethiopian bar and restorant" to see if they had any injera that I could buy to compliment the shiro... but turns out they only have beer and soda. So much for my local injera supplier :( The second time this week was on Wednesday when I went with some friends to the Basilico restaurant - a very modern tukel decor sort of place with great food! And then, of course, today, with Annamarie! I hope this trend continues!

(by the way, shiro is made from ground up chick pea flour and cooked into a sort of paste, like hummous, but served hot with cooked tomatoes, onions, garlic and hot berbere chili pepper. tibs are basically chunks of meat, either beef or goat (today we had goat), cooked in a frying pan with lots of garlic, tomatoes, green peppers and berbere spice).