June, 2009

Rating : 8 out of 10

Tariff : dinner for 2

• 1 glass wine
• 2 combination entrees
• tip
• $40

Atmosphere

There is nothing special about the cafe--it has a dark bar area and a few tables in the front room and then it opens into a larger, slightly lighter skylit dining room to the rear. It's hardly a dive, but not fancy, either.

Combined Vegetarian & Meat Platters

Entrees

The presentation is very unique because there is a thin soft bread called injera, about the thickness of a crepe but much softer and spongier.  This is placed on the platter and then the selection of foods is arranged atop of it.  Diners are given extra injera as well. You eat with your hands tearing off pieces of the injera and scooping up mouthfuls of each different food. (Lots of napkins are provided!) We decided that sampling many different dishes would be advantageous, so we ordered both of the combination plates--meat and vegetable. The meat dishes were: Zigni (beef), Zebhi Dorho (Chicken), and Alicha Begee (lamb). The sauce with the beef was mild but flavorful, my favorite. The chicken drumstick was a bit tough and sinewy, making pulling it apart with the bread difficult. The vegetable dishes were: Tumtuma (lentils), Hamli (collard greens), vegetarian Allicha (potatoes, carrots, and cabbage), and Alicha-Ater (pureed chickpeas).  Of these, I liked the pureed chickpeas best for creamy simplicity and the collards for their strong taste.  The potato selection had large chunks of potato and not much flavor, while the lentils were a bit too spicy for me.

Service

We had a very nice waiter--in fact he was the only employee other than the bartender that we saw.  He was polite and helpful about ordering, but otherwise very quiet and unobtrusive.

New Eritrea
907 Irving Street
San Francisco, CA 94122
415-681-1288