Ethiopian Food

I haven't had Ethiopian food in a long time, so I was especially excited to go out to a new place not too far from our house. Some friends called at 6pm and as we (my honey) hadn't quite started dinner yet, we spontaneously went out to eat.

Uploaded onto Yelp by When D.

The food was so good that we had to order an additional vegetarian combo, because we ate up the first one and were still hungry. My favorite is the carrot, cabbage, and potato dish, although the greens and beans were good, too. And, of course, I love the injera.

The most memorable part of the evening was not the food however. We realized about halfway through our meal that we had stumbled upon a poetry session. It may have been a poetry slam, or maybe a poetry open mic, I'm not sure about the nuances of each of those. In any case, people got up and read their poems into the microphone.

Some of the poems were rapped, others more spoken. Several were quite moving and we definitely laughed at times. There was some structure in the madness, as there was a video camera and an MC, but I don't really know how it all worked.

Are they at this restaurant every Friday night? Or do this group roam from place to place?  How often do they meet? How do you sign up to read your poetry? Can anyone do it? I know the answers to none of these questions.

What I do know is that it made a delightful evening more delightful, hearing young people read their poetry around the themes of the night, home and memory. Quite a diverse crowd with varied voices, it made me happy.