A Taste of Ethiopia - Burnin' Love!

In front of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial

In front of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial

Joseph and I took a trip to Washington DC over this past MLK, Jr. weekend, and while we were there we took a quick Metro trip to Silver Springs and gave our taste buds a taste of food from across the pond.

We are so blessed to have so many families from our church who have adopted from all over the world, and several from Ethiopia. Our fellow Ethiopian parents have encouraged us to visit some Ethiopian restaurants and begin acquiring a taste for this hot food. So we did just that.


Because the area to which we ventured has a great Ethiopian community, we knew the food should be pretty close to the real thing. As we walked through the doors of the restaurant, we noticed 2 things that were probably obvious to everyone in the restaurant as soon as we entered:

1) We are definitely first timers in this restaurant (we didn't know if we should seat ourselves or wait to be seated - the waitress kindly took us to some seats, but we noticed other patrons who came through the door found seats on their own);
2) We only speak english (and our waitresses only knew a few words in english, but they were super sweet to these silly Americans trying Ethiopian food on their own for the first time!).

Thankfully, they did have english words on the menu. We ordered kitfo, which is raw (or very rare!) beef seasoned with mitmita (which is a hot spice), served with injera (flatbread that looks kind of like a sponge), ayeb (cheese), and gomen (Ethiopian collard greens). It was an awesome cultural experience! We weren't quite sure if we were eating correctly by pulling apart the injera and using it to scoop up the meat, cheese, and spice, but our waitress kindly affirmed us.






































Afterward, we happened to enter into conversations with two Ethiopians. When we told them we had just eaten Ethiopian food for the first time, they both responded "It was hot, right?!" Haha! To which we agreed wholeheartedly! Yes, it is hot food, but it was great!

It was a great weekend remembering much about our own cultural history and experiencing a bit of our little one's culture as well. We can't wait to eat Ethiopian food with our little one!!

In front of the Senate 

Waiting for you, Little Thigpen!