We Exterminate our Hunger at Dahlak

   An unscheduled weekend can often be just as complicated as a busy stringently scheduled weekend.  For some reason free time will turn my husband and me into seven year olds during summer vacation.

     “What do you want to do?

     “I don’t know what do you want to do?

     “I don’t know what do you want to do?

      Thankfully my husband broke the cycle and made a suggestion.

     “Why don’t we try that Ethiopian restaurant in the city…what was the name…oh, Dahlak.”

     “Wait, what is the restaurant called?” A cheesy grin spread across my face. It took my husband a few seconds to catch on.

    “Huh, I never thought about that.”

   “We HAVE to go!” I cried.  So we set off into the city to exterminate our hunger at Dahlak.

 

 

 

     Dahlak is located on Baltimore Ave in the University City section of Philadelphia.  We have never eaten Ethiopian food so we were looking forward to a new eating adventure.  The inside of the restaurant looks a bit worn and the windows looked to be in serious need of some Windex but other than that it is a pretty cool place. It was fun sitting on cubes situated around woven tables (there were regular tables for those who weren’t down with the cubes). 

 

 

 

 

We happened to be visiting during University City’s restaurant week so we decided to take advantage of the special restaurant week three course menu. For $15 each we got an appetizer, one meat dish, two veggie dishes and dessert. 

 

 

 

 

The meal is served family style so you end up getting to try a little bit of everything anyway. We both chose the feta salad.  It consisted of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, feta and a cilantro dressing.  The lady at the table next to us meticulously picked all of the cilantro out of her salad.  That made me sad because I love cilantro. 

 

Ethiopian food is not for germaphobes.  There are no utensils except for your hands and your injera bread.  The bread has the consistency of a crepe and you tear it into pieces that you use to scoop up your food.  On our plate we had chicken stew, beef stew, beet stew, okra stew, chickpea paste, cooked cabbage and lentils.  Everything that we ate was delicious.  We tore it up, literally, since the food was set on top of a large piece of bread that you could also tear and eat.  I now have a new cuisine to add to my list of foods to crave. 

 

 

 

We will definitely be returning to Dahlak.  Our meal ended with some yummy baklava and a check that was light on our wallet. 

 

 

   After our noshing we took a stroll and strolled right into a lovely little independent bookshop called Bindlestiff Books.  With a name like that how could I not go in?

 

 

For as small as the store was they had an impressive selection.  Of course what kind of reader/writer would I be if I didn’t do my part to support a local independent bookshop, so I had to buy a book.  Like my food I can’t wait to tear into this book.

 

 

*For those who didn’t understand my enthusiasm over the restaurant’s name, Dahlak is pronounced like Dalek, one of the villains in Dr. Who.