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Meskerem Ethiopian Restaurant, New York
Aloha!
10/6/11 - Our roughly 30-minute walk to Meskerem Ethiopian Restaurant came on our very first night at the famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Unlike most other cities, it's actually cheaper for a good hotel on the weekend than it is on weekdays, since most occupancies are work-related and many leave for home on Friday nights. Not that it was cheap - I just figured that as long as we're here, I wanted to experience such a monumental and historic place, the very place where Presidents all the way back to Johnson, Eisenhower, and FDR stayed at, not to mention Pope's, King's, Queen's, and too many Hollywood celebrities to count, even to this very day! In fact, being that the UN General Assemby was in session during our visit, there was a huge contingent of diplomats and statesmen from all kinds of African Nations in-house. First opened over a century ago, it was one of the first and perhaps most famous luxury hotels in the world for many, many years - we had to do it!
Front Desk Area, Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue, New York
Main Lobby area at the Waldorf Hotel, New York
The place is immaculate, classy, and big-time high-maka-maka and we were more than thrilled to be here, but being such an old hotel, the rooms do carry a bit of an aged look as compared to a typical Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, or Sheraton. Still fabulous, though, don't get me wrong!
Forget the hyper-expensive Bull and Bear Steakhouse downstairs, though. Outside of the lounge for a few drinks, we didn't want to pay any more premium prices, and Meskerem Ethiopian restaurant a short walk away was our way of enjoying a good meal at normal-person prices. It also fulfilled our desire to experience an ethnic variety of food not available in Hawaii, and as far as I know, we've never had an Ethiopian restaurant before!
(10/7/11 update: Aaah, it turns out there is an Ethiopian restaurant now! Thanks to the very astute foodie and mega-experienced world traveller Ken Williamson, once again, for this note - "Aloha Aku, Still in operation from late February 2011 there is a pop-up Ethiopian restaurant every Thursday night at J2 Asian Fusion, the offshoot of Praseuth Luangkhot's JJ Bistro in Kaimuki, hosts Addis Ababa Hawaii's Ethiopian Thursdays. There is a three-course prix fixe dinner and à la carte menu offered: Addis Ababa Hawaii's Ethiopian Thursdays, 5-9:30pm, c/o J2 Asian Fusion, 3441 Waialae Ave at 9th Ave (across the street from Town), 628-8461, addisababahawaii@gmail.com. Reservations recommended-or you might find yourself cooling your heels on the sidewalk. BYOB."
The last few blocks of our walk down West 37th, between 8th and 10th avenues, was a bit sketchy and dark, but 10th Avenue itself, on which corner houses the restaurant, was busy enough to feel very safe, even at night. The restaurant itself was packed, which only confirmed to us that we made the right choice! Thank you Yelp, Trip Advisor, NY Magazine, and the other sites that helped bring us here!
Since no seats were available, they allowed us to sit at the bar for a few drinks while a table opened-up. The two ladies there were hopelessly under-staffed, and to make matters worse, only one of them was doing all the work! Customers all over the place were calling for this, calling for that - I felt so bad for her! I told her we could have our meal right there at the bar, and with a line forming outside and in, she was so happy! Glad to help!
I didn't get an inside shot, but here's a partial from outside:
I knew an Ethiopian beer or wine would be a longshot, but thought I'd ask anyway. Turns out, they didn't have a beer from said country, but did have a wine called tej, which is derived from honey. While tej is made indigenously for commercial use, mostly from the State winery of Ethiopia, it must be difficult to obtain the real thing outside of Africa, as our particular bottle was brewed right in the States, Indiana if I'm not mistaken:
I loved it! It was crisp and sweet, with a strong but not overpowering taste of honey and a slightly lower alcohol content than normal. If white or sweet isn't your flavor, however, there are other wines to choose from, along with a small handful of bottled beers (no draft - boo-hoo!):
Heavily spiced meats and vegetables, in a variety of curry and curry-like stews called wat, are the most popular dishes in Ethiopian cuisine, all served over a starch of injera, which is a large flatbread. Interestingly, injera has a slightly sour, slightly tangy, and slightly sweet taste, closer to a thin sourdough pancake than a typical flabread of roti, naan, or chapati. Our appetizer, an azefa ($5), came wrapped in a giant sheet of injera:
Not being given directions, and with no utensils anywhere, I was strictly guessing when we began tearing small pieces of injera off and using them to pinch portions of the azefa inside. And our assumptions were right! Azefa is a collection of lentils, green peppers, onion, lemon juice, vinegar, and mustard, all served cold:
Cold, yes, but I'm not sure about frozen! With little bits of ice found all throughout the dish, I could only wonder if they were careless on the execution or if it was a planned occurance - perhaps someone can inform me on the matter. Whatever the case, it tasted like a typical health-conscious dish - not heavy on seasonings, a refreshing zing of lemon, lots of veggies, and, most of all, that super-healthy legume, lentils. After all, a good dose of fiber is definitely called for when ordering the meat dishes, which we wouldn't even think about leaving out! For the uber-healthy, though, there are no less than 10 different vegetarian entrees and a few meat-less appetizers on the menu as well, with familiar items like carrots, onions, peppers, and string beans as well as a few more exotic stuff like chickpeas and collared greens.
Here's our meat-filled entrees:
Wow! Once again, no utensils necessary and everything was spread over a large sheet of injera, this time utilizing a pizza-like platter. Both of our entree orders were actually placed on this one beautiful arrangement as we shared the meal in typical Ethiopian fashion - with dirty fingers! Kumi went with a doro wat (background; $12.95), which is described as chicken seasoned with onions, garlic, and ginger, then sauteed in butter, red wine, and berbere, berbere being a mix of chili peppers and spices widely used in Ethiopian cuisine. A hard-boiled egg was also thrown-in.
My order was going to be a special tibs, which is a chopped lamb sauteed in honey wine, fresh tomatoes, green peppers, and awaze (a combination of berbere and honey wine), but since we like spicy-hot dishes, she said a yebed wat ($12.95) would be the same thing except with added heat, even though the explanation of the two dishes on the menu was different! It came with tender pieces of lamb marinated first with butter then sauteed in berber sauce. I'm sure the former would have been great, but the latter turned-out as good as I can possibly imagine it getting, with a good deal of heat, a very tasty mix of spices and seasonings, and some very tender pieces of lamb void of any gaminess whatsoever.
Here's another shot, with the doro wat on the left and yebed wat on the right:
Quite honestly, our server was so busy tending tables that I didn't even ask her what all the various sauces were (actually, it was more like everything disappeared before she finally came to our table!), but they were all delicious, the sauce in the foreground tasting like some sort of Ethiopian miso paste!
Whatever the case, we really enjoyed our meal here at Meskerem. Besides the tangy taste of the injera flatbread, it was pretty much what I'd expected - lots of curries, lots of spices, lots of exotic flavors, and all the quirks that come with so many deeply ethnic restaurants outside of the main-stream - I love it!
Next time, just like the Waldorf-Astoria... we had to do it! After all, we're talking Anthony Bourdain here, baby!!! But did it live-up to the hype...???
Take care, and Aloha till next time!
Aku
