qwertyy

Yes, you're right. I wrote that badly, though. I meant that the food, aside from the injera--the wot, tibs, kitfo--were all just indescribably better, brighter, more perfect than I've had them here. Sure, I realize that time and place and company play a huge role in appreciation, but this stuff was just off the hook, and I don't know why! Although I'm deeply craving it and still in withdrawal, I've actually held off on getting Ethiopian since I've been home so it can live in my memory a bit longer. Jealous! This is not stuff I'd drink on a regular basis, but I went to Ethiopia assuming that tej was like the stuff we had here--basically kind of an uber-sweet riesling--and it's SO NOT. And it tastes even better after a few hours of doing the "chicken dance"... Ahem.

Ethiopia is a pretty darn good place for food. Heavy on Italian and Ethiopian (duh), it's generally well-priced, well-portioned, and thoughtful. Ethiopians fast 200-250 days a year, but their style of fasting only restricts the consumption of animal products. Fresh fruits and vegetables are also uncommon. (Thus the bean-heavy vegetarian fasting platters--as well as the fact that women, especially pregnant women, are often undernourished, profoundly lacking in calcium and vitamins. But I digress.) Addis Ababa Habesha served me the best Ethiopian food of my trip. It's one of the many so-called "cultural" restaurants that serve Ethiopian food in a traditional setting, with flourishes like the coffee ceremony and dancing. These are the places tourists seek out, but during my lunch, we were the only table of foreigners. The meal begins and ends with servers who come to the table with a pitcher, soap, and a basin to wash your hands--nice in a dusty city when you're about to eat with your hands. The four of us got the vegetarian fasting platter for two--and couldn't finish it. And this stuff was freaking phenomenal. The injera is lighter and less sour than we get in the States, but other than that I can't even describe or pinpoint why it tastes so, so, so much better. It's just a revelation. We ordered coffee, and a woman came by with a tray of just-roasted, still-smoking beans for us to smell, then lit a small tray of incense on the table. The coffee on its own would have been delicious, but the smells sent it over the top. I still dream about this $3 meal. Castelli's. Oh, Castelli's. Possibly the most famous Italian restaurant in Addis, it's served famous folk from Bill Clinton to Angelia Jolie. My buddy called to get us a table for that night, and was rebuffed. But I didn't get his message and when I met him there, we decided to give it one last try. And in fact, one demure smile later and we were ensconced in a private room. (Don't judge me.) The salad, ravioli, and peach gelato were just delicious, if overpriced. And our server was a hoot. The guy had obviously worked there forever, and had great stories to tell once we engaged him. Nice place. Chez Fasil is just strange. It's a new "international" restaurant that's incredibly difficult to find, but that could not be more hospitable. On walking in the front door, the host serves you a shotglass of a tasty, cold, lightly alcoholic drink. Nice touch. The menu is all over the map and mixes, uh, species more than I've ever seen. You can't just get pork; you get pork in a sauce of ground fish. You can't just get fish; you get fish with chicken cream. Interesting, and okay, and quite surprisingly not disastrous. Don't bother ordering starters here; if you order an entree, they bring about three courses beforehand. For us it was soup, lentil salad, and an injera-berebere concoction. Note: Ethiopian ouzo isn't bad when you're drinking it; it is decidedly bad the next day. You don't have to be a member to eat at the Greek Club, and if you're in the mood, it fits the bill. Tasty beef shwarma and Greek salad. Note: the things that look like green bell peppers are SPICY, not sweet. Both Tivoli and Antica have respectable pizza, though I'd have to give the edge to Antica for a better crust, and also because I actually had to salt my pizza at Tivoli. Which I've never done before. Family is possibly the only restaurant I've found in Africa that serves Tex-Mex food--a pretty darn smart move since they're very close to several U.S. and European offices. They do a surprisingly decent job at it (but I still can't get behind using yogurt instead of sour cream). They also have okay sandwiches and salads, and foreigners should feel perfectly comfortable about eating their fresh vegetables. I had lunch there about twice a week for a month and never had the slightest problem. Guy's is a proper, divey expat bar with good sandwiches, fries, and salads. British themed, but the name is the French pronunciation "gee." Jewel of India serves fine, unremarkable Indian food. Tasty bread, decent service. Lalibela The only place I ate in Lalibela was my guesthouse, Seven Olives. While not as good as Habesha, the Ethiopian food was still just amazing. And the coffee, again, delicious. If you don't drink coffee with milk regularly, try it in Africa at least once. That stuff comes straight out of the cow and adds an extraordinary richness and unmistakable DAIRY-ness. After a day hiking around the churches, have dinner and then get yourself to Askalech Tej House, also known as Torpedo. Tej in Ethiopia is really different than what we're served in the States. It's thicker, looking almost like mango juice, and tastes strongly of honey without being as cloying as it is here. You can order it mild, medium, or strong, and it comes in a cool bottle, which you drink from directly after knocking the first sip out of the neck. Torpedo is a "tourist" place, but still has dirt floors, goatskin seats, and 75 percent Ethiopian customers. A husband and wife walk through the room singing and playing a masenqo, encouraging people to dance. And once you're about halfway through your tej, you will start dancing. You just will. I have no idea what the name of the bar where we ended the night is.

A short week in Casablanca yielded endless days in a conference room and some truly excellent meals. I ended up tagging along on three dinners planned by others, and I wouldn't change a thing. We were the first guests of the night to arrive at Jnane Sherazade. (Amateurs! No one eats dinner at 7:30 in Morocco!) Lucky for us, though, because it allowed us to shamelessly gawk and stare at the stunning dining room. Every wall, every ceiling was carved or inlaid; every seat was velvet. Stunning. The menu is fixed at 300 dirhams (~$36) for four courses of refined Moroccan/French food; it's also in French, though our server spoke fluent English, which helped with some of the Franco-Arabic words. We chose a shared array of about seven or eight salads to start, which were light and just lovely--and hard to stop eating. I moved on to chicken pastilla, a flat disk of crackling phyllo filled with a gorgeous spiced, minced chicken and dusted with powdered sugar. My main of lamb tagine with quince was swimming in about a half inch of fat, but the meat was beautifully cooked and perfectly complemented by the quince. To end, we shared a massive platter of pastries, which we made a bigger dent in than expected considering how stuffed we were. Our conference group dinner was at the predictable, crowd-pleasing Rick's Cafe. We had a set menu. My swordfish was good--much better than it needed to be; my caesar was fine. But, you know, for being a tourist joint, the place was absolutely beautiful, surprisingly light on the kitsch, and very comfortable. I'd go back to the bar there any time. For our last night in town, we hit Le Rouget de l'Isle, which turned out to be the meal of the week (maybe the meal of the year so far). Again the first people to arrive, this actually worked to our favor since we hadn't booked in advance. The restaurant is in an amazing art deco townhouse, with beautiful, intimate dining room seating. The menu, again, is in French, and our server did not speak English. But since most of the dishes are classically French, my obsession with food paid off and I was able to translate much of it. My green salad, generously tossed with duck lardons and a mild blue cheese, was close to perfect, but judging from comments at the table, the carpaccio and the poached egg with mushrooms were the winners from the first course. (I can't confirm that, though; it's just too wierd to ask your bosses for a bite of their food.) I followed it with The. Best. Cassoulet. Ever. Honestly--creamy beans, beautiful sausages, phenomenal pork, and accompanied by a small arugula salad to cut through the richness. As soon as the server took the dish away, I wanted another. But my over-full stomach protested, and everyone else at the table felt the same way, so no more cassoulet, and I also was unable to get anyone to go in on the souffle with me. No dessert. Service was excellent. I recommend Le Rouget very highly. Note I: after a quick spin through the Quartier Habous market, we decided we'd just meander on over to Jnane Sherazade, which looks quite close on the map. Hey, don't do this. As we were wandering around in circles looking lost, a man with a walkie talkie, who said he was "tourist police" approached us and told us we shouldn't walk alone there. But there were no cabs, so we hesitantly allowed him to lead us (hesitant because I had been "assisted" by the "tourist police" once in India, with decidedly negative results). Luckily, he turned out to be on the up-and-up and incredibly kind, and wouldn't even accept a tip. And we never, ever, never would have found this place on our own. So, thanks, nice dude. Note II: Moroccan wine is surprisingly not bad. And because of massive import tariffs on spirits coming into Africa, it's a valid, affordable choice for dinner.

Cashion's? Siroc? Mourayo?

Has anyone been to the Gibson lately? How would you compare this to the Passenger as a destination for a post-work, pre-dinner, early-week stop?

To luck. Because I'm on the waitlist for Komi, Rasika, and Eve Tasting Room, and I need ONE of them to come through. (Or for my brother to give me more than two weeks' notice when coming to town. )

Oh I know, I know. Because I'm really Ingrid Bergman at heart. (cough, cough) This weekend, when I WASN'T going, I caught "Casablanca" on AMC for the first time in at least five years. I thought it was just rubbing my nose in me not going on the trip. Who knew it was just prep?? I don't want to mobilize the forces because I really may only be able to have one meal out, but on the off chance I do, I don't want to be caught unprepared! If it matters, I'm staying at the Sheraton. And for future travelers, the latest NY Times article on Casablanca (April 2006) is here.

I know I have not yet reported on my excellent meals in Ethiopia yet (I will! I will! Blame in on the snow!), but I just found out I'll be in Casablanca next week. Knowing these conferences, I'll only have one night out. Anyone have any ideas where I should go??

A fantastic salade Nicoise Okay, it's technically not a Nicoise without the olives, but one does what one can without leaving the apartment. Filling enough for the weather, but light enough to help me out of comfort food boredom. Nummy.

At 9:30am, the Adams Morgan Safeway was no more busy than usual, and reasonably well stocked--by snowstorm standards, not by regular Tuesday standards. I managed to get TP, eggs, and a reasonable amount of produce. I only waited in line about 20 minutes (reminded me of the old pre-Whole Foods Soviet Safeway days), but the lines had reached to the back of the store by the time it was my turn. When I said good morning, please, and thank you, the check-out man seemed delighted to have someone be nice to him.

I called the number on CVS.com for the Columbia Road branch to see if they were open, and after endless ringing got the Verizon announcement: "The wireless customer you are trying to reach is unavailable..." Think it's some sort of sick corporate joke to list a private cell during a snowstorm?

Federal government is closed tomorrow. Yay!

Aw man. I legitimately need to go to the store. I've been gone a month, and while I have lots of stuff in the freezer, I need bread and milk and eggs and yogurt... but surely those are exactly the things that will be gone. Rats. What do you think the odds are that I could find a restaurant that delivers tomorrow?

Nothing! I am simmering nothing right now! But I fully endorse the simmering: I got back today from a very long month in a hotel room in Ethiopia--eating every meal out, except for the meals I ordered in--to find a fridge that contains two bottles of champagne, a jar of pickles, seven kinds of mustard, and a rind of parmesan. This is depressing when you consider that jetlag is decidedly incompatible with pre-snow storm grocery shopping. But am I depressed? No! Because I simmered the heck out of December, and have a freezer bursting with chili and soup--cream of broccoli, carrot and wheat berry, chunky tomato and bacon, turkey stock. Simmer away, friends! Even if you don't eat it this weekend, one day, not too long from now, you'll be happy you did.

Years ago, a date took me for drinks at the Fairfax Hotel on 21st and Mass Ave. While not as nice as the Mayflower or Tabard, I remember being pleasantly surprised at the cozy bar, complete with wingback chairs and a roaring fire in the fireplace. I offer this suggestion with severe reservations since it was, as I said, years ago, and hotels remodel themselves more often than Hollywood starlets, but it might be worth a peek since fireplaces are rare and lovely in the winter, and it's close enough that you could always just wander to Urbana if things have changed... ETA: Sorry--I just realized my suggestion is too late. But I'd love to hear if the hotel still has a cozy bar if anyone is in the neighborhood...

That's my business. I'm not seeking recognition.

Why is it important to announce how much money you are donating? Or that you're doing it in a "very tough economy"?

And this, in a nutshell, is why I find the Post.com design so annoying. I'm overseas for a wee spell, so I don't have access to the paper version right now. But the site is such a mess that when you read it online, you just basically just have to know what days your favorite columns and sections run and look for them on those days. Hunting gets you nowhere, writer archives are laughably out of date, and many one-off articles are buried so deep, or have truncated headlines, or are not listed at all that unless you *know* that they're running, you'll never find them. After so many years, I'd really hoped they would have started to get better at this. Harumph.

Again--still--to the buddies who are there, now facing a stark, grim, relentless reality, and that somehow, they'll be able to keep going.

A half packet of ramen because I only have a small coffee cup in my hotel room into which you can only fit a half packet of ramen. But I'm okay with it because this was lunch (I [heart] Ethiopia):

I have blessedly not been hung over yet, but I think that's attributable more to cautious consumption of alcohol and copious consumption of water than anything else. But what my friends advised seems to have been true: as I get acclimated to the altitude, the drunkening is less and less marked. Plus, I think I discovered (decided?) that my tolerance hadn't dropped so much as the dizziness I was getting because of the altitude was compounded by a beer or two; my motor skills and balance may have been way off, but my brain was working dandy (ie, conversing? O.K.! driving? N.O.!) In any case, it's usually best to stick with beer in Africa anyway. I do NOT/NOT recommend Ethiopian wine, and the import tariffs on hard liquor and wines are through the roof. A perfectly respectable yellow beer is a dollar, while a shot of Johnny Walker Red (which they measure down to the CC) is ten bucks. Incidentally, caffiene and sugar also have the same sort of extreme initial effects as alcohol. Cheap date, indeed!

To all of my buddies on their way down to Haiti to launch the aid response. Godspeed, friends.

Spending the month at 8,500 feet, I'm discovering a range of bizarre effects altitude has on the body. For one, I had two drinks the other night--a lukewarm old-fashioned (bless the dear waitress for saving me from the ice because despite my idiotic insistence otherwise, alcohol does NOT kill parasites) and a glass of wine over about two hours--and I was nearly sloshed. Drinking beer slowly seems to be a good, monitorable route, and my friends here say that in time I could build up a tolerance. So, when you're way up here, why do you get drunk so easily? Is the blood alcohol level actually higher than it would be after two drinks at sea level, or does the thin air just play havoc with brain function? If it's just havoc, then how can you develop a tolerance?

I'm trying to eat all my perishable and embarrassing food because I'm leaving tomorrow for a month and have a friend coming to housesit.

I don't know what you did, but it's fixed! Thank you!