Last night, I went to dinner with some of my blogger friends. We decided that we want to try an Ethiopian restaurant and I suggested Desta. My friends Andrew and Katharine took me a couple years ago and I remembered it being good. That said, I was a little nervous that no one else would like it and I would be forever scorned as “the one who picked the bad restaurant.” This has happened before, though not with blogger friends (ahem, 5 Napkin Burger).
One thing that I really love about Atlanta is that though it’s full of trendy farm-to-table restaurants, it’s also full of authentic ethnic cuisine. For whatever reason, I’ve found myself craving the latter lately. I’m actually going to a Korean restaurant tomorrow night, but that’s another post. Obviously, since I haven’t gone yet. Also, I tend to forget which is the former and which is the latter. The second is the latter, right?
I digress.
I called ahead and made reservations since there was a large group of us. At first, they sat us at a table that was too small, but were able to move us to a bigger one. In attendance were myself, Laura, Laura’s friend and regular guest blogger Kat, Heather, Alayna, Stacy and Heather and her boyfriend, who are visiting for the weekend from Tennessee. And with that many bloggers in the place, no one remembered to get a group picture. Fail. I did get some pictures of the food however.
If you’ve never had Ethiopian food, the main thing to know is that traditionally you don’t use utensils. Instead, you scoop up your food with a bread made of teff flour called Injera. It kind of looks like towels, but tastes delicious. (They will give you a fork if you ask though.)
Laura was looking up reviews while we were ordering and the Vegetarian Platter was mentioned several times. I didn’t really know which of the dishes I’d like more than others, so I figured why not try them all?
I have no idea what any of this really is. I think it’s something with chickpeas on the left, something with lentils next to it, and then a bunch of delicious tasting mysteries. And a huge half jalapeno hiding in the back. Several people ended up with this platter, Laura and Heather got the fish tibs and Alayna got the lamb tibs. Everything was delicious, save for the Ethiopian wine that Laura and Kat ordered. I didn’t taste it, but the consensus was that it tasted like vinegar. Oh well, food made up for it, I hope.
Have you ever had Ethiopian food?
It was the perfect suggestion! Such a great dinner and good to catch up. we need to do a monthly ethnic food outing.
I LOVED Desta and plan on taking Travis soon. I officially crown you the BEST restaurant suggester(is that a word)! And I agree w/ Laura about a monthly thing, that would be fun.
Love, love, love Ethiopian food. We’ve had it a few times when we’ve traveled, and it’s been SO good each time. I’m a pretty big fan of using food to eat more food.
I haven’t had Ethiopian but I really want to try it! DC is the same way with having a lot of great Ethnic food represented. I tend to gravitate toward Indian, Thai and Japanese, but there’s also a delicious Korean place near our apartment. I also really want to try Vietnamese. It’s crazy that I never have (beyond bahn mi).
I tend to gravitate toward Thai and Japanese (in the form of sushi) most of the time too.
I’ve never had this kind of food! Looks interesting though. The Injera totally looks like towels. What a cool dining experience
I’ve always wanted to try Ethiopian!
It was really tasty. The only other time I’ve had Ethiopian food it wasn’t so good. The injera looked and tasted like cold dirty dish rags. This was much better. Let’s take Stacy’s suggestion and do Panahar soon!