Week 5 - Lalibela/Ethiopian

Ethiopian food is entirely new to me. So I looked online and found Lalibela, a restaurant that caters to the Ethiopian community in DC. I’ve passed it many times on my way in and out of the city on 14th Street.

I sit down for lunch and read the menu and I don’t have a clue what to order. I decide a lamb dish should be my choice, and my waitress recommends one with a spicy vegetarian side. My meal comes served on a big platter on top of a flat piece of Injera bread, and the same bread comes on the side. I see other diners taking pieces of the bread and scooping their food with the bread using their hands. The bread is spongy and soaks up the flavors of the food. The lamb and sides are spicy and delicious, but the heat from the spice kind of overwhelms the dish. I feel like I should have ordered a vegetarian dish or platter to taste a greater variety of flavors. At Himalayan Heritage I really liked the vegetarian dishes in the buffet. So I’ll keep that in mind for my next blog meal. And now that I know about Lalibela, I’ll come back and know what to expect.
The menu tells me that Lalibela is one of Ethiopia’s holiest cities and a center for religious pilgrimage. The town has a number of rock hewn Christian churches dating from the 13th century. The churches are monolithic structures literally carved out of the rock. I’m including a photo of one of the churches also featured on a poster in the restaurant.