Eating in Ethiopia
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"Here is a guide, what you can get for the money (Food and Drinks):"
- 3 ETB - Black Coffee with milk
- 6-8 ETB - Soft Drink: Coca Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Seven up, Mirinda and Pepsi
- 8 ETB - Juice
- 10-15 ETB - Dessert
- 15-20 ETB - Breakfast
- 30-50 ETB - Coffee 1 k
- 40 ETB - Pizza, Hamburger, Fish 'n chips and Spaghetti
- 50 ETB - Asian Restaurant or African Restaurant
- 60 ETB - Injera with all kind of wot
- 80-200 ETB - Cake
- 150 ETB and upper - You can get the most elegant and luxury Restaurants for this price level.
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Injera is Ethiopia's national dish. Injera is a spongy, tangy tasting bread made from the grain teff, which grows in the highlands of Ethiopia. It is eaten with wot (or wat), the traditional stews made with spices and meat or legumes. Some popular wats: Doro (chicken) wat, Yebeg (lamb) wat and Asa (fish) wat. Another popular dish is Tibbs, spicy beef fried in butter. It can be either really bad (burnt to a crisp and resembling petrified wood) or juicy and delicious in more fancy restaurants. (The Holiday Hotel in Addis serves delicious Tibbs).
The injera sits directly on a large round plate or tray and is covered with wat placed symmetrically around a central item. The various wats are eaten with other pieces of injera, which are served on a side plate. Injera is eaten with the right hand - rip a large piece of injera from the side plate and use it to pick up one of the various flavors of wat on the main platter.
Do not eat with your left hand! In Ethiopia food is a respected gift from God and eating with your left hand is a sign of disrespect.
Another popular injera dish is firfir: fried,shredded injera. It can be served with or without meat or with all sorts of veggies.
If you prefer vegetarian foods, try the 'shiro wat' which is a vegetable stew served with injera, most of the times you have to specifically ask for it as it doesn't come with most of the combinations as ethiopians prefer meat.
Kitfo is minced meat, spiced with chili. You can have it raw (the locally preferred way, but there's a risk of getting the tape worm), 'leb-leb' (lightly cooked) or fully cooked. It comes with a local cheese 'ayeb' and a spinach.
For the pickier traveler, almost every place in Ethiopia also serves spaghetti (thanks to the short lived Italian occupation.) In nice restaurants in Addis you can find excellent spaghetti and lasagna (try the Blue Tops or Top View restaurants), and in the more peripheral places you will usually find it overcooked with bland tomato paste as sauce.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Ethiopia
