Our Wednesday Whine & Dine crew (and guest) embarked on another culinary expedition last night. Destination: New Eritrea at Irving and 10th. Five stars! We savored Sambusas (fried “envelopes”, one stuffed with chicken and another with veggies) for starters; and Zebhi Dorho (chicken drumsticks), Gored Gorad (rare tenderloin [still unsure about whether “rare” meant not-fully-cooked or endangered; couldn’t tell with all the sauce, hopefully the former]), Hamil (collard greens), and Okra as entrees. We ate “family style”, so everyone had a taste of everything. The entrees were served on one huge round stainless steel plate lined with Injera (spongy sour bread). We each also received our own basket of Injera, which we tore off and used to grab the food on the main plate with our right hands. A burst of rich flavor in every bite! In fact, the smell and feel of spices permeated the entire place, in a good way. The décor was pleasant as well, with animal wood carvings lining the ledges, bead and walnut shell curtains flanking the doorway, and beautiful painted small goat pelts on the wall and under our glass-top table. We went home exuding the essence of the food we ate -- similar to the smoky bar feel from my younger years (pre-indoor smoking ban era), but much yummier.
A bit about Eritrea (courtesy of BBC News country profile)…
“A former Italian colony, Eritrea was occupied by the British in 1941. In 1952 the United Nations resolved to establish it as an autonomous entity federated with Ethiopia as a compromise between Ethiopian claims for sovereignty and Eritrean aspirations for independence. However, 10 years later the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, decided to annex it, triggering a 32-year armed struggle… In 1993, in a referendum supported by Ethiopia, Eritreans voted almost unanimously for independence, leaving Ethiopia landlocked.”
• Population: 4.4 million (UN, 2005)
• Capital: Asmara
• Area: 117,400 sq km (45,300 sq miles)
• Major languages: Tigrinya, Tigre, Arabic, English
• Major religions: Islam, Christianity
2 comments:
you are so funny :) this is both fun and educational :)
IBU
my favorite place on irving used to be chika, sort of a japanese pub. but they moved away.
for cioppino, villa romano aint bad, but for pasta i actually prefer pomodoro. for viet, the place next to san tung. for old school pizza, pasquale's.
for breakfast, you really need to try art's.
on 9th, for dessert, try park chow (ginger cake).
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