Worst Blog Ever

Kristie asked me, through the comment section of the blog, to describe the best meal I've ever had. Like yesterday's blog post, it was difficult to pinpoint one particular meal. Was it the first home cooked Thanksgiving meal, cooked by Bev Barbaro, that I was served after moving out of my parent's house? Was it the best fish fresh fish meal that I had while hanging out on the South Island? Or maybe it was one of our own meals that we like to make, like my Lasagne recipe?

In the end, after much deliberation and discussion, I think that the best meal I've ever had must have been a meal of Ethiopian food that we had while we were in Sydney, Australia last year.

Ethiopian food is my absolute favourite kind of ethnic food. Yes, I love Italian, and Indian, and Thai, and Malaysian, but there is something unique about the flavours that are in Ethiopian food. The first time that I ever tried Ethiopian food was at The Blue Nile restaurant in Edmonton, Alberta. From that first moment, I was hooked!

If you've never had Ethiopian food before, here is an abbreviated explanation of the dining experience you will have:

First the spices that they use in their dishes absolutely defy description. I could say that they taste somewhat like the spices in Indian food, but that is like saying Ostrich tastes like chicken. It serves as a comparison, but it is woefully unable to portray the true flavours. The spices that they use are incredibly flavourful, but not spicy, as in a hot spice.

Secondly, in an authentic Ethiopian restaurant, you don't use cutlery. All of the dishes are eaten using a wonderfully flavoured flat bread called Injera. The main courses, which can be thought of as stews, mashes, purées and even salads are all served on top of a large injera. This is served to the group as a communal meal, which everyone shares. Along with the meal are several rolls of injera for everyone to tear into smaller pieces to use for scooping up their mains.

As I had mentioned, the mains, especially the meat dishes, which are called wots, can be thought of as rich thick stews, but not a runny stew; almost a thick and chunky paste of lambs and beef goat and chicken. The veggie dishes, of which there are many, use many root vegetables, leafy greens, cabbages, and lots of lentils. The cabbage dish is usually my favourite, followed by the red and yellow lentil dishes.

For the longest time after moving to NZ, we were unable to partake in this type of food, as there were no Ethiopian restaurants her in New Zealand. But then, we learned of a Thai restaurant owner in Brooklyn, who allowed an Ethiopian family to run a weekly pop-up restaurant within the Thai restaurant on Mondays; a day that they would have been closed anyway. This soon became a favourite haunt of ours, and we made many trips to that restaurant as it seemed each week, the chef would get better and better. After a while, we got a bit complacent, and didn't go as often as we could. As it turns out, the chef decided he couldn't handle Wellington's cold weather, and he was going to move to Melbourne, Australia. So we never got to have a final meal by one of our favourite chefs.

Last year, Kristie and I went to Sydney, Australia for a half Marathon race we were taking part in called The Blackmore's Running Festival, which was absolutely amazing, and I'll have to write a blog entry about that on it's own. Anyway, as part of the prep work for visiting a new country, Kristie found great places to visit, and see, and above all, to eat! And one of the places that she found, was Sydney's only Ethiopian restaurant called Jambo Jambo. Jambo Jambo is this little restaurant set in a small strip mall in a neighbourhood called The Crowsnest. It is owned and operated by a very gregarious and personable guy called Joseph Bekele.

While in Sydney, we didn't have a car, so we use Google maps on my phone, and walked from Balmain to the restaurant; a walk that took about an hour or so. At the time of arrival, we were the only ones in the restaurant; we were seated and ordered from a friendly waitress. Not long after ordering, Joseph came out and greeted us, talked about how we came to enjoy Ethiopian food, and told us a little about himself too. For instance, after we told him that we were Canadian, we discussed his brother, who lives in Calgary, and how he faired during the floods of last year.

After some friendly chit-chat, he went back into the kitchen to prepare our food. Which was, without a doubt, the best example of Ethiopian food we have ever had! Maybe it had to do with the fact that we hadn't had Ethiopian in ages, or maybe it was the long tiring walk (which was pile onto many other long tiring walks while in Sydney), or maybe it was Joseph's friendly, welcoming demeanour. But I suspect it was all of the above. And isn't that what makes a great meal great? A confluence of events that makes the meal stick out in your memory.