Haile Bistro Visited 6/23/2015 3.5 Forks

Haile Bistro 182 Ave B, New York, NY 10009

With our fearless social leader off to London, my B-school friends and I vowed to try to keep things going with what's left of us here in NYC.  We thought it would be fun to do a Global dinner rotation each month with one person picking an ethnic restaurant to try.  I took the first stab at it and decided to go with Ethiopian food since most people hadn't tried it before. 

I will say that New York is one of the greatest food capitals of the world, but there are a few cuisines where we probably fall behind some other cities.  I would say Ethiopian food is much better and more prevalent in DC than it is here.  None the less, I thought it would be fun to get the girls together to have some Ethiopian food - plus it's a good cuisine for groups. 

Normally I would have chosen to go to the good ole stand by of Meskerem in the West Village but I figured it was worth trying something new.  This place seemed to get good enough reviews on Yelp, so I made a reservation here for a Tuesday night.  So it turns out this place isn't the kind of restaurant where you really need a reservation.  It's quite homey and cute, much more of a local joint that anything else.  I'm not sure if it's because of it's location or what but it was very low key and low maintenance.  Since it was pouring rain that day, most of us were pretty late but that didn't really matter here.   Since we were all starving, we started off the meal with an order of aambusa ($7) which was kind of like their version of a samosa.  It was a savory pastry filled with green pepper, jalapeño, onion and beef.  There was nothing amazing about this appetizer, but it was just something to fill our stomachs with while we waited for our main dish.  With any Ethiopian meal, I usually just go for the combo dishes since it gives you a little bit of everything.  Amy got the vegetarian ($15) one for herself and Richelle, Kristin and I split 1 meat and 2 meat and veggie combos together ($16 and $17). To be honest, I never really know what I'm eating with Ethiopian food, I just love the inerja and eating a bunch of random food with my hands with it.

The meat and veggie combo came with doro wat (chicken), ye siga wat (beef), some kind of lamb dish, collard greens, chick peas, green beans, lentils, and cabbage and carrots.  I never really know what is what on the plate but I just go for it with the injera and everything always tastes good.  I loved their inerja here - very soft, warm and spongy - I couldn't stop eating it.  All of the meat and veggies were tasty and had a nice mix of spices - although I felt like it could have used more spices in the meat parts.  I did miss the combo not having a hard boiled egg but there was more than enough food to keep me full.

My only real issue was that the service was super slow.  Granted there was only 2 people working the entire place and one of them was super pregnant so I do feel a bit bad saying it as they were very nice.  I miss Ghenet in Park Slope a lot as it had nice ambience and good food but this place was good enough for a low key casual outing with the girls.  Total bill:  $39/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Meskerem Visited 7/18/2013 3.5 Forks

Meskerem  124 MacDougal St., New York, NY 10012

Every year for Aarti's b-day, we try to keep a tradition of getting Ethiopian food.  Even though NYC is one of the most diverse cities in the world, strangely enough, there aren't a ton of Ethiopian options in NYC.  I wanted to try a new place, but we ended up going back to one of our usual haunts, Meskerem in the West Village.  There's not much in the way of ambiance as it's in this beat up downstairs area on Bleecker Street (a street full of NYU haunts).  It's small inside with tables that seat no more than 4 people at one time, but it was cozy enough for Aarti and I.  The menu is pretty extensive with lots of both meat and vegetarian options.  Since it was Aarti's b-day, we opted for the vegetarian combo for two ($28) and the avocado appetizer ($6).  After looking at the menu, I would say that the combos (either the veggie or the meat/veggie one) are definitely the way to go because it lets you try tons of different kinds of dishes at a fairly reasonable price.  If you ordered individually, single entrees of one type of dish would run you $13-15 each.   

The avocado dish was served on injera bread with chopped avocado, tomatoes, green peppers and onions.  It was kind of like guacamole but not all mashed up.  The dish was great but honestly the ratio of injera and avocado mix was way off.  There was about 3-4 scoops of the avocado and by the time we were done with it we were left with tons of injera and nothing left to eat with it.   The veggie combo comes with miser alech (lentils with curry), miser wat (lentils with berbere sauce), shro wat (chickpeas with berbere cause), sautéed string beans with carrots and onions, a mixture of cabbage, potatoes, and carrots, collard greens, and chickpea balls.  And of course it comes on top of injera and then served with another side of injera.  So yeah - it was tons of food.  To be honest, it was really hard to tell what was what on the plate because they all kind of look the same except for the cabbage, the green beans and the collard greens.  The injera was nice and soft and spongy and I started sopping up a little bit of everything from the plate.  All the mixes were flavorful and one of them had an especially strong kick to it.  I used the cabbage mix to cool off my mouth and to re-set my palate.  Even though there wasn't any meat on the plate, the injera really fills you up very quickly.  We were both really full after an hour or so and Ethiopian food isn't really the kind of food you want to take home with you.  While I really enjoyed all the different mixtures on the plate, it would have been nice if there was a bit more differentiation in texture/consistency among them.  

All in all, I don't have any major complaints about this place and for the price and what you get for the combinations it is very reasonable.  It's a solid restaurant that could just use a bit of touch up to their decor.  I would warn that most Ethiopian wines are super super sweet, so I would probably stick with the beer.  There are a few other Ethiopian places that I haven't tried that are in Harlem, but if you're looking to stick to the downtown area, Meskerem is a good but low key choice.  Total bill:  $57 for 2 with tax and tip 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Bunna Cafe Visited 9/8/2012 3.5 Forks

Bunna Cafe -  Location Varies

I am pretty big fan of Ethiopian food but there generally aren't a lot of them around. There's  Ghenet, Meskerem, and Awash just to name a few but there's probably not that many more.  I had been reading about this vegan Ethiopian place that pops up around Williamsburg and Bushwick and I was totally intrigued.  Luckily this past Saturday, they popped up near my apartment at a bar called The West on Union Ave and Hope Street (haha, the corner of Hope and Union - I'm not sure if that is some kind of sign for me).

I wasn't sure what to expect...I kind of thought that they would actually take over the entire place and cook the food there like they did at Yuji Ramen.  But instead here it's still primarily a bar/cafe and Bunna Cafe just had a table set-up in the back of the bar with containers and bags of food.  You walk up to the table and order what you want and they plate it right there.  You have a choice of 4 dishes ($8) or all 7 for $12.  Of course I had to get all 7 and boy is it a lot of food on one small plate.  When you get all 7 you get gomen (steamed kale with carrots, red onion, ginger, garlic and herbs), misir wot (red lentils), yeter kik alicha (yellow split peas with yellow curry), keysir (beets, carrots and potatoes), yesuf fit fit (sunflower milk and peppers), yetimatim selata (raw tomatoes with lime juice and oil) and chuny selata (kale, tomato raisin and avocaod in olive oil).  And of course you get 3 helpings of the spongy bread, injera. 

All of the food was super fresh and healthy tasting (I mean, it is vegan after all).  The problem with Ethiopian food is that it's usually served all on 1 plate and it's hard to decipher what's what as everything gets mixed together.  So I had a hard time telling what I was eating and what I liked the most.  I do know that I found myself going back to the yellow split pea section and the split red lentils multiple times.  I did manage to try all of the dishes (I think) but could barely finish half of the plate.  There wasn't any one dish that I didn't enjoy eating.   The food was all flavorful without being overwhelming.  I also really loved their injera.  It was super soft and spongey but strong enough to hold all your food with each bite.  While I don't mind vegan food at all, the dishes that I do usually like with Ethiopian food include egg and lamb and it was sorely missed here.  Aarti also made a comment about how it was also a bit different (not necessarily good or bad) that all of the food was served cold.  By the nature of their set-up, they had to cook all the food first and then serve it on beds of ice.  Usually when the food comes from a restaurant, some of the dishes are warm, so it did kind of feel like we were eating at a picnic instead of a restaurant.  My one small pet peeve is that when I am eating at a place that serves food that requires you to eat with your hands, you should get wet naps in addition to just napkins.  Yes, I know, you can always go to the bathroom to wash your hands, but it would just be a nice touch.  I do love the idea of pop-up shops and I would try Bunna if it pops up at other places nearby, but I would definitely get the 4 dishes for $8 instead. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Ghenet Brooklyn Visited 6/5/10 4 Forks

Ghenet Brooklyn  348 Douglass St, (between 4th Ave & 5th Ave), Brooklyn, NY 11217

One of the first Ethiopian places I went to was Ghenet in Soho, so I was really excited when they opened a branch in my 'hood.  If you've never had Ethiopian food, it's basically lots of spiced meat or veggies on top of a squishy/bread-like product.  I usually get one of the versions of the combinations, meat or veggie combos, b/c it offers a best variety of the different dishes. Otherwise, I think getting the individual dishes isn't really worth it b/c they range from $12-17 for each dish.  I think it would be pretty boring to just get 1 dish for a meal. 

Aarti and I split the veggie combo for 2 ($32.95 total).  This was huge and came with every veggie option on the menu (total of 8 dishes): it was mostly different versions of lentils and beans, a collard green dish, a green bean/carrot dish, cabbage and potato, and a spicy mushroom dish.  They all kind of look the same and in some cases, taste the same, but they are all really good.  The mushroom dish was very spicy but the other dishes were fairly mild.  The bread is the right consistency to sop up all the food and you can even use the bread base if you run out of the extra bread they give you. We ended up having a lot of leftovers, but we didn't think it would keep very well if we took it home.  I do wish that they would offer smaller/cheaper combos b/c it's really too much food for 2 people.  One way we were thinking was doing 1 meat combo and 1 veggie combo, which I might think about next time b/c the meat dishes are also quite tasty.  All in the all it was a great meal and relatively affordable, the only thing that bothers me is that they use the AmEx card holder but won't take AmEx.  Total bill (food+soda+tax+tip): $48