Etiopian Food - The Queen of Sheba

We recently ventured out to a local Ethiopian restaurant called the Queen of Sheba.  It is the only Ethiopian restaurant in our town and it just opened - Woo Hoo!  The owner is a woman who was born and raised in Ethiopia - her name is Almaz.  We were so excited to learn of it's opening and were anxious to try it. 

Well, I have to say that our first outing received mixed reviews from the family.  We were starving when we arrived and there was a very long wait - the place was absolutely packed with people waiting in line just to be seated.  Good sign right?

While we waited, I noticed three of the most BEAUTIFUL children.  You guessed it .... they were from Ethiopia.  I just wanted to grab them and take them home!  There was a four year old little boy and 18 month twins, a boy and a girl.  They had their parents on the run the entire time, but man were they cute!  I was able to chat with the mom a little about adoption until she had to run and catch a fleeing child.  There is just such an instant connection when you come accross someone who has or is going through the same process as you.  Maybe I will be able to re-connect with this family after we bring "A" home.

Well, we finally got a seat and had a chance to look over the menu.  Even though the menu was fairly descriptive, we had no idea what we were doing or what to expect.  When we finally got to order, we got a small appetizer (beef sambussa - a delicate Pastry filled with lentils, onions, spices, and ground sirloin) which was so insanely delicious that it lasted about 2 seconds.  The wait for the rest of our food seemed to take forever!  Did I mention they were packed?

When we got our food, it was presented in a very traditional and beautiful way.  It looked just like this:
 

The only difference was that it had rolls of injera (a spongy bread seen here underneath the food) between the piles of food.  It is to be used to scoop up the food since there are no utensils.  It is definitely an acquired skill to scoop up very saucy food with a piece of thin spongy bread. 

 

Unfortunately, Tony and Samir didn't really care for the Injera which was a bummer since it's basically the "delivery system" for the rest of the food.  I thought it was good - not sure if that's because it was actually good or because I was so hungry and just happy to have finally received our food. 

 

The rest of the food was hit and miss too.  We definitely need to do more research before we go back.  Everything we ordered was very spicy and Samir couldn't eat hardly any of it.  By very spicy, I mean VERY spicy in a way we are not used to.  We like to eat a lot of spicy food, but this had a different kind of heat - the kind that gets hotter with time.  Again, I was gobbling it up and Tony and Samir were just kind of picking at it.  When we were done, we left being happy for the experience and determined to do a little more research before our return visit.  We finished the night off with a stop at Baskin and Robbins to douse the flames in our bellies.  I can't wait to be able to compare it to some authentic Ethiopian food while on our trip to pick up "A".  :-)