March 2, 2003
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I found out today that I have to wait another full week before I can go to olive garden...BUT I WANT TO FEEL LIKE FAMILY! I was considering suicide, but I figured, how am I supposed to feel like family when I'm dead?
So last night we went out to eat Ethiopian food. Here's a partial account of all the crazy things that happened and some of my not-so-fun insights about the night (For those of you from hawaii that sent the email to, this will probably be just some half-assed cut and paste job so you might as well look away! Look away I said! I'm hideous!).
Yesterday night we (me, brian, tiff, jessie, and loris) went out for a "delicious" dinner at an ETHIOPIAN restaurant. Yes, Ethiopian. Jessie told us that we had to eat Ethiopian food at least once. I agree with her on the point, that yes, we must all try Ethiopian food at least once...and in my case, (probably) ONLY once. But let's back-track to an hour before dinner, when I first found out that we were going to eat Ethiopian food.
The first thought that came to my head when she said that we were going to eat Ethiopian food was the question, "there is food in Ethiopia?" I mean, I just read an article on MSNBC about this guy who traveled to hungry Ethiopia and there was famine and disease everywhere...and hands grabbing...smiles on everyones hungry faces...those smiles...so sad...I had read that 11 MILLION people were going to die in Ethiopia this year alone, so it made me feel a little bit...selfish...to eat the food of Ethiopia when Ethiopia didn't have any food at all. But I got over it and happily hopped into my friends car to go to "Little Ethiopia."
I realized how diverse LA was when I found out there was an actual Ethiopian district in LA (that would be "Little Ethiopia"). The small district is full of Ethiopian restaurants and, for some reason, a lot of cake shops and wedding shops. Yeah, I guess Ethiopia is the wedding-central of the world. Who knew? So we walk into the restaurant and are forced to sit at the bar and wait for a seat b/c there just isn't enough room for 5 pathetic Asians.
We actually saw two groups of people get seated before us. It almost made me want to kill...almost...but not really. Tiffanie, my so-called heterosexual life-partner and future roommate, and I were too busy "pretending" to be stupid. Yeah...pretending...(ahem)...
We were sitting at the bar and playing make-believe that we were stupid kids that are trying to be really cool and adult-like so we won't get carded for alcohol but keep on messing up. "Uhh...yeah, I'll have some Ba-car-di?" "I'll have some COG-NACK. (supposed to be Cognac)" and my personal favorite, "Yeah, I'll have some Abso-slut vodka...on ice!" We just sat there and giggled like fools. (sigh) I have so much fun with her.
So when we are seated and the waitress handed us the menu, I, as usual, had my pre-conceived notion about what would be in it. I mean, Ethiopia is having a famine right now, so naturally I just assumed our menu options would be like "One Biscuit Given To You By an American," or "Dirt from Your Parched Crop-less Land," or "Corn Meal from Feed the Children," or "The Last Goat in the Village." Boy, was I wrong!
The menu was actually pretty full, and not with any of the things I described above. We just let Jessie pick for us. And she got this vegetable thingy, meat thingy, another meat thingy, and this cheese stuff. I don't really know what any of it was called, I was too busy looking for my "The Last Goat in the Village" selection. Mmm-mmm, goat!
So the first thing that comes out is the vegetables. The waitress brings out this HUGE platter and in it is one layer of this spongy bread stuff. The platter is so big b/c Ethiopian food is communal, we all eat from the same plate. Well, apparently all of the food in Ethiopia is mashed up or something b/c when she put our "vegetables" on the platter, all I saw was mash and not, "beans" or "carrots" or "sweet peas." She also gave us another big plate of little rolls of that same spongy Ethiopian bread that lined the platter. Now, the way you eat Ethiopian food is this: you tear a little spongy bread from the roll (and this bread is really thin, kind of like a spongy crepe or something) and then you use the bread to grab some veggies. So that's what we did. I ate a little of all of the vegetables and I happened to notice that almost all of the "ethnic mashes" were very spicy. The bread was kinda sour.
The next "course" was raw beef. Yes, raw. It was cooked a little bit, but I could still see how very, very blood-red the meat was. I avoided that stuff like the plague, so I won't really elaborate on the flavor of that "exotic" dish. I know, I know, I love sashimi, but at least sashimi doesn't bleed from it's very recent slaughter. But a couple of the other people tried it (once again, you tear and grab, that was basically the theme for the night...a very...sensual...sort of theme).
Our main course was this (cooked!) beef with onions and peppers. It was spicy, but it tasted delish. I ate quite a bit of that and basically everyone enjoyed that dish. Tear and grab, tear and grab!
We finished the night with some of the best baklava I've ever had. WAAAAAAAY better than the baklava I make!
And then Tiffanie and I laughed really hard at this slightly lesbianic moment that transgressed between us.
Well, thats about it. I will probably have more to write next week when we go to Glendale and eat AT THE OLIVE GARDEN!!! Woo-hoo!
(anger level rising)
**--**foogray/lor**--**
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