Valentines Ethiopian Style

So I thought I had this great idea for Valentines--okay, maybe a night out on the town dinner since Sierra's parents were here this weekend (and her bro could babysit). We'd go into Seattle and have dinner at one of the Ethiopian restaurants, as a sign of our commitment to the integration process and to get more cultured. Also, part of it was because I really like different ethnic foods and wanted Sierra to realize it's not all that bad (she apparently had a bad Ethiopian food experience back in high school). And hey, it was Valentines, so that could be a two-fer.

So it went something like this...

5:45 - Leave the house. Dave to Sierra's parents: "Watch this, on a normal traffic day like today, it takes us less than 25 minutes to get into the city."

7:00 - After bumper to bumper traffic coming into the city (due to some construction on the Interstate and not to mention likely more evening dinner out traffic due to some holiday), we pull into a lot with one remaining spot. Price to park: $20.

7:05 - Dave walks into the cute little authentic restaurant like he owns the place (had done a little research on the Internet) only to find out that the only way we're going to be dining is if we had a reservation (not enough research on the Internet). Dave begs and pleas and leaves a phone number, and is told there's a possibility in about an hour (looking around, there couldn't be more than 10-15 tables in this place...and people don't look like they're moving).

7:05-7:35 - We aimlessly walk around the Pike's Place Market area, thinking maybe we'll get an early call back (okay, only I was thinking that...everyone else was thinking McDonald's sounded good given the cold weather).

7:45 - Dave makes one last ditch effort as everyone walks back to the car lot. And yep, you guessed it, they opened a table for me. And I'll never tell what put them over the top.

9:00 - We're still sitting at the table waiting for our food. I'm not in that much of a hurry...kind of enjoying the away time, but everyone else is getting ready to doze off and growing impatient. Despite the long wait, we did have some great conversation related to the adoption (next steps, talking about the trip to Africa, throwing out different names we're considering--I know it's early for that, but what do you do...need something to bide the time, and no we won't share yet.

9:05 - Here's the food. Okay, not the greatest picture...but that's because of the Valentine's Day ambience.:) So that's a combo of beef and shrimp tibs, some sort of chicken, a mixture of beans, a mango/pineappled salad, and some curried potatoes all served on this spongy sourdough tasting pancake concoction called Injera bread. Off to the left of the plate is another plate of Injera bread. The way you're supposed to eat the food is to rip off pieces of the bread and use it instead of a fork to scoop the food. No silverware.

9:15 - We're already finsihed. Okay, maybe not that quick, but it had to be close. We were so hungry that it seemed like the food disappeared. All in all, I think there was consensus that it was good food and a good meal overall--took quite a while, but fun and interesting nonetheless. Happy Valentines Day honey!

And the bonus of it all...you got to take away this really great lingering smell from the food. We're not kidding...we both had our jackets airing out on the porch today.:)

So let the culturing begin.