How to eat Ethiopian food
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If you like spicy vegetables and savory meat dishes, Ethiopian food is for you. Traditionally, Ethiopians eat no pork as they are mostly Orthodox Christians, Muslims or Jews. Lamb is popular along with beef and chicken. This is an excellent cuisine for vegetarians. Red and yellow lentils, chickpeas, and split yellow and green peas are found on every menu. Side dishes include cooked cabbage, potatoes, and cooked greens, such as collards.
Good Ethiopian cooking is not bland. Berbere, powdered chile pepper and other spices can make the food spicy-hot. Also essential is niter kibbeh, a clarified butter infused with ginger, garlic, and several spices. A variety of cooking oils are used too, including sesame safflower and nug or noog, made from the niger seed.
The meat, beans or legumes are cooked into a thick stew, a wat or wot. The stew is ladled atop a stretchy pancake called injera. Injera is nourishment, plate and eating utensil. Made from fermented teff flour, it is a type of sourdough flatbread, which is very stretchy and pliable. Rolls of injera are served on the side. This cuisine is meant to be shared by a small group of diners who eat off the same large plate.
If you are on a low carb diet, skip Ethiopian food all together. You simply can't do without the bread. Traditionally, you eat with your right hand only, using three fingers--the pointer, middle and thumb--but just do the best you can. Tear off a piece of the bread. Use the bread to pick up a piece of food. Pop it in your mouth. When all the piles of food have been consumed, eat the bread the food sat on, too. The injera has absorbed the juices and can be the very best part.
All the Ethiopian restaurants I recommend below will allow you to request a variety platter, taking the worry out of ordering.
Queen of Sheba is located in a strip mall along Briarcliff, between Druid Hills and Clairmont. The restaurant, decorated with bright reds, yellows and oranges, is one of the more widely known in Atlanta.
Amy's Ethiopian Food is a small restaurant with the least hot-spicy food on the list, but very flavorful. The owner, Amy Techale, is delightful and accommodating.
Meskerem is located in a shopping center on the corner of Clairmont and Briarcliff, where at least 2 other Ethiopian restaurants can be found.
Cottage is an endearing restaurant and probably my personal favorite. Located on Piedmont Avenue, it's a great place to experience the coffee ceremony after dinner too.
Enat Ethiopian has Ethiopian merchandise in front, with the dining room in the back. The website explains the restaurant's name.
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