Addis
Lamb with onion and spices, mixed vegetables in spices, and chicken in a mild spice sauce. Served with injera.
The first time that I had Ethiopian food was a few years ago in New Haven, and it wasn’t a great experience. I can only remember that the bread was too sour, and that there was way too much of it: under the food, next to the food, and in the food. Luckily, at the insistence of two dear people, I decided to give this cuisine another try.
Even in London, city of a gazillion cuisines, there weren’t many Ethiopian restaurants to choose from. I picked Addis, near King’s Cross, because it got great reviews and seemed authentic.
We ordered three dishes between two people: the lamb with onion and spices, mixed vegetables in spices, and chicken in a mild spice sauce. The waiter first delivered a large metal tray covered in a sheet of injera bread (which is made with teff flour, hurrah!), with three rolls of injera bread on the edges. Then, he returned with the three dishes in porcelain bowls, and proceeded to dump each dish onto the injera.
No utensils were provided, so I happily ate with my fingers. It was really satisfying. The lamb was cooked in an almost bitter spice, and the chicken was cooked in a tomato-based sauce. The chicken dish also came with a whole hard-boiled egg, which was surprisingly good with the sauce because it balanced out the spiciness. Both the lamb and the chicken were very tender. The mixed vegetable dish was the mildest, and came with cabbage, potatoes, beans, and carrots.
The food got increasingly spicy in my mouth, so it was a relief to have the mango and passionfruit juices we ordered. After finishing off the meat and vegetables with the rolls of injera bread, we moved onto the sheet of injera bread underneath. This was incredibly delicious because it had soaked up all the sauces from the three dishes. By this time, we were having a bit of trouble picking up the saucy injera bread with our fingers (I wonder how it’s supposed to be done), but managed to finish everything off the plate in the end. I can’t wait to revisit Addis!
Mango juice and passionfruit juice
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Addis Restaurant
40-42 Caledonian Road
London, N1 9DT
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the chicken arrived as one whole chicken thigh. I wonder how we were supposed to eat it. I thought the injera was meant to keep the fingers from getting covered in food, but maybe the chicken was supposed to be finger food. And I can recommend combining bits of each dish in one bite! Ethiopean food is sensational!
I also wonder how we were supposed to share the whole hard-boiled egg. You did a pretty good job mashing it into pieces with the injera, haha.