Ethiopian food is eaten with the hands with the assistance of a soft flat bread called injera - you tear off little pieces of the bread and use it to pick up the food. The food is somewhat similar in consistency to Indian food - ground or chopped food in sauces. As with Indian food, the sauces are often spicy, although the spices are a lot different. (Not all the dishes are spicy - some are extremely mild, so you shouldn’t have any problem there if you don’t like spicy food. Just avoid things the menu tells you are spicy.)
Hmmm... On the subject of comparisons between Indian and Ethiopian cuisine, there’s an Indian appetizer called a samosa, which consists of ground spiced vegetables or meat in a triangle of dough, deep-fried. And there’s an Ethiopian appetizer called a sambusa, which consists of ground spiced vegetables or meat in a triangle of dough, deep-fried. Not identical, but quite similar. I’d be interested to know the connections there.
Another connection is with Italian food, drink, and culture, since Ethiopia was an Italian colony. You will find a variety of espresso drinks on the menu, for instance, and the dishes are enamelled and painted in a way that very much reminds me of Italian dishes.
Speaking of dishes, your whole party will probably end up eating off of a single huge dish set on a small round woven table with a shallow bowl- or basket-like top. You can see a picture of this table (with a triangular cover) on the front of Addis’ menu. As you can imagine, this makes Addis a good place to share dishes.
(If you like Ethiopian food, but decide you don’t want quite as authentic a dining experience, you might want to try Asmara in Central Square, Cambridge, which European-style tables and chairs, and where the waiter will bring you a fork unbidden if you look confused.)
Among our favourite dishes on the menu are yebeg alcha in the lamb section, and atakilt, gomen wot, and kinche, all in the vegetarian section. (Kinche is yummy, but it’s pretty bland, so you’d want it along with other dishes.) As an appetizer, I tend to get a beef sambusa, but be warned that the sambusas are very oily. Ye-awaze dabo (a thick bread with a sauce for dipping) is also yummy.
Their address is
544 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116
and their phone number is
617 426 8727
If you’re driving, you should leave a lot of time for parking, because it’s not at all easy to find in that neighbourhood.
Here’s a map (new URL), courtesy of Mapquest. You can see where Back Bay Station is by looking at the train tracks between Dartmouth and Clarendon Streets; Back Bay Station extends between them, with exits on Clarendon and on Dartmouth Streets. If you take the Clarendon St exit, you’ll end up on the corner of Clarendon and Rte 28, but you should pay attention to the street signs to see which way you’re facing.
