queen of sheeba... ethiopian food...

Last week, Mikey and I went to Queen of Sheba for Ethiopian food.  I've had Ethiopian food before but it's been YEARS and Mikey had never had it.  Just happens, this restaurant is right across the parking lot from Xxcess catering, where he works, so it was a no brainer to try it out.


Here is the front of the restaurant...

...not really much to look at... but walk in and you find this...

Fancy!  There wasn't much traffic going on at the time of our visit, more on that later...

Here's Mikey.

And here's me.

So, we order.  I think it was the lunch menu.  We ordered a mixed veggie lunch and a chicken thingie lunch... and two teas.  The nice waitress had already brought us waters.  We indicated that we were going to share our lunches, which she recommended (new to us).  Usually when we indicate we want to share there is always an issue of bringing more plates or bowls so we can share, especially when we go eat Vietnamese.  We like to eat family style. C'mon...

So, when you eat Ethiopian food, you traditionally don't use utensils.  We had napkins.  Not a problem...

So... They bring out a big platter with one of their spongey (in a good way) breads loaded with all of our food on it.  YUM!  In the middle is the chicken thingie, surrounded by veggie goodness... two lental dishes, mixed veggies, spinach, two cabbage things, and a tahini thing.  She explained what everything was.

Here's another shot of goodness... You can see the holes in the bread from this view.  The bread is like a thin sourdough pancake.  It's got holes on one side and is smooth on the other.  It's soft and kinda spongey, and tastes slightly sour, which complements the dishes wonderfully!

Then... you get this little basket of bread to eat it with...  I think it's two whole bread things, rolled up and cut into about 5 inch lengths.  You take a bread and unroll it, tear off a piece and use it to scoop up a bit of your food.  It's really, really good!

Then your fingers get a little crusty.  ...hmmmm.

...At which point, the thoughtful waitress notices we're almost finished eating and she brings these!  Wet towelettes!  How wonderful!

I must mention... the whole time we were at lunch, we were the only people save some guy that looked a lot like an old classmate of mine from ARTS that came in for some take-out.  However, the nice waitress was setting up this elaborate buffet table.  We asked her and she said that in the evenings, LOTS of people come in for a happy hour and they serve snacks.  I've heard Mike talk of the multitudes of taxis that come to the restaurant in the evening... that must be some authentic home cooking for our cabbis. Plus, Queen of Sheba has been around for decades... and the food can attest to that!

-P