Whenever I take a newbie to an Ethiopian restaurant, I never fail to hear the same joke. "But Ethiopians are skinny, so will we really even be eating anything?"
The jokes stop here, because Ethiopian cuisine is both filling and delicious. And Cafe Lalibela at 849 W. University Drive could be the best Ethiopian food in the Valley.
Most of my Ethiopian experience has been limited to the Blue Nile cafe at University Drive and Rural Road, but since the restaurant came under new management, I've heard the quality of its food has diminished. That's why I decided to try Tempe's other Ethiopian restaurant, and I'm glad I did.
While the atmosphere at Cafe Lalibela isn't as exotic as some other similar restaurants, the food is above average.
At an Ethiopian restaurant, you order a combination of dishes, which come served as stew-like blobs on a platter. You also get a couple large pieces of injera -- a flat, spongy bread that you use to scoop up the food.
On a recent trip to Cafe Lalibela, I ordered the vegetable combination platter: combination of misir wat (red split lentils cooked with onion and herbs), gomen (chopped collard greens with garlic and onion), tikil gomen (lightly spiced cabbage, carrots and potatoes) and fosalia (string beans cooked with carrots and onion). The combination platter also came with selata, a garden salad. My companion also ordered a side of yekik alicha (yellow split peas with onion, turmeric and herbs).
Most of the food was excellent. The fosalia tasted a little like spaghetti sauce, the tikil gomen was a perfect match of soft cabbage and chunky potatoes, and the misir wat added a spicy twinge to the mix. The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the gomen. There wasn't enough flavor to overpower the sense that I was just eating leaves. My companion's yekik alicha was also tasty, but it was a little bland.
While these are all vegetarian dishes, I will offer this to all you meat-eaters: I've taken many carnivores to eat Ethiopian food before, and they've all ordered dishes containing meat. But every time, my companions have passed up their meaty dishes and eaten most of the vegetarian food I've ordered. I'm not sure why, but the vegetable dishes seem to be more appetizing.
If you've never eaten Ethiopian before, you might want to visit the cafe's Web site, cafelalibela.com, before visiting. The site contains a guide on how to rip and use your injera and a pronunciation guide. But no matter how badly you mispronounce the dishes, just be sure to leave the stupid jokes at the door.
ice cream on top.
Despite the meal's setbacks, it was an overall enjoyable experience, and the large selection of salads, sandwiches, appetizers and wines makes My Florist worth revisiting, despite the lackluster service.
Reach the reporter: tara.brite@asu.edu.
