Tana Ethiopian Restaurant

My first restaurant review...yay! So I decided to try something new and went to an Ethiopian restaurant that got pretty good reviews on Yelp. Everyone said that their Vegetarian Special was A-mazing so I had to try it out. So the place is kind of hidden but not too hard to find.

Of course I ordered the Vegetarian Special (for myself...oops) I watched my waitress take my order and then prepare it in the kitchen herself (a good sign) and when the waitress brought it out I realized it could easily feed 2-3 people. The plate was the size of a large pizza platter...

As I stared at the massive amount of food in front of me, I realized how similar this looked to the Indian food I was used to. Lentils, split beans, cabbage and spinach...all very familiar to Gujarati style food. This raised my expectations even higher. I ripped a piece of the injera bread (similar tasting to a dosa) and tried one dish after another. After making a complete round, I was surprised to find no warm item on the plate. Everything tasted...ok. Maybe it was my high expectations or comparison to my grandma's food but this Vegetarian dish was far from special. The spices were very similar to Indian spices but without as much of a kick. I usually like my food very spicy and seasoned so this seemed more on the bland side to me. I may not be used to the Ethiopian spices, but this just did not do it for me and I just could not get over the temperature. I asked the waitress about this and she told me that in Ethiopia vegetarian food is usually consumed when no other dairy or meat products were available. They would prepare these types of dishes and leave them out to eat whenever hungry (at room temperature).

I definitely appreciated the homemade quality of the food and that gets them some points...but..I would say, try this if you were in the area, but don't go out of your way. I still feel like there is yummier Ethiopian food waiting for me somewhere else and when I find it you guys will be the first to hear about it.

K I hope you enjoyed my first post!

P.S. Any suggestions on a clever rating system??