Text 7809, 105 rader
Skriven 2013-12-12 17:15:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: restaurant tastes 580
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Scenario: I got called to play in this concert of Bill's,
and usually I stay in this little downstairs room, little
more than a closet; only this year he cleverly put his
house on the house tour, plus he has a boarder, some
teenage kid, using the area some of the time. So this
year he had his friend Paul put a few people in his
apartment, which he never uses, half an hour away in
Malden, fine with me as I could practice with the other
musicians as I saw fit, not have to take Paul's crazy
eating phobias into account as I cooked, and so on.

Anyhow, after a couple days, the larder (which I'd
stocked) was depleted, and we needed Internet, so we
found a list of restaurants with free wi-fi and figured,
hey, cool, kill multiple birds with one stone, that sort
of thing. Plus the place was just a mile down Salem St.
and a block up Main, easy as pie.

So my friend Link and I strolled in to find a pretty
deserted place at 1 pm, a bad sign. She said that it
smelled pretty good, which goodness I did not detect -
it smelled to me as if they'd peed on the floor and
mopped the neighborhood with it; but I couldn't very
well say what I thought. So I accepted a table and
my fate, which turned out to be not so bad.

Flipped open the laptop, and no signal. Inquiry revealed
that they hadn't had free wi-fi for some years. Okay,
whatever; the reason we were there was negated, plus the
place smelled like a urinal. Still, we stayed and
actually ordered food.

We started with vegetarian sambusa, listed at $2.50 (a
ground lamb version is 50c more); the waitress asked,
one piece or two, a bad sign, as they usually come as a
pair for about that price. We said two, and when the bill
came, we were charged $4, so either a $1.50 roundeye tax
or a $1 discount for bulk. The pastries were very small,
half the size of what I'd expected, filled with a dense
lentil filling very lightly seasoned with cumin. The
wrapper, though, was thin and shatteringly crisp, which
made the things a joy to eat.

For main, as Link is a partial vegetarian and I am largely
a meatarian, we got the house sampler, nonvegetarian
version. This came as usual as a lot of little maybe 2 oz
portions arranged on an injera-lined tray. Most of the
food was surprisingly good, and I thanked my lucky stars
for that.

Yellow lentils were disappointingly bland, but the blob
of red lentils next to it was on the spicy side, so that
was a win one, lose one. On the table was a shaker of
mixed fine-ground salt, pepper, and cayenne: it helped
the yellow dal a lot; the red didn't need any.

Collards tasted like collards anywhere. This is not a
bad thing, but perhaps they are better with smoked pork
product the way the Americans do it.

A stew of cabbage and carrots was understated but
excellent.

Though green beans are on the menu, they substituted
what was already made up, which turned out to be quanta
firfir, a stew of dried beef or lamb with garlic, onions,
butter and hot paprika - rather gamy but delicious and
certainly preferable to green beans.

There was a pile of a spicy garlic-tomato substance; I
don't know what its name is, as it wasn't on the menu;
it was very good.

Almost as an afterthought, there was a small serving of
a pretty plain but tasty meat and onion dish, the meat
being a small amount of finely minced and overcooked
something, submerged in onions, garlic, and cardamom.

I got the feeling that as this was lunch on an off day,
we were served whatever leftovers the kitchen wanted to
feed us; this was not a problem.

Center stage was taken by doro wot, a chicken drumstick
in tomato and onions with a hard-boiled egg. The sauce or
stew or whatever it was had been cooked for a long time
(certainly it was days old) and was concentrated and
delicious; the proteins were well served thereby but in
fact seemed overshadowed.

The injera served with was very tasty but cold, not the
greatest thing on a sub-freezing day.

Even though beers were only $3.50 (more for Ethiopian),
I passed.

Counting tax and tip, no beers, we spent something like $22.

The Malden Public Library has wi-fi and is only two blocks
down the street. I'd played a recital there about a quarter
century ago and asked the reference librarian if there was
any record of those olden days. Answer: no, but we had a
pleasant chat.
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