The restaurant was full when we got there. The hostess/server suggested we sit at the bar and wait for a table to open up. We did so and watched some of the food come out of the kitchen ad tried to decide what to eat ourselves. The menu is pretty substantial, but very similar to what I was used to at my previous Ethiopian restaurant. D.Rough asked for a beer menu to see what they had that would go with Ethiopian fare – she decided on a beer from Ethiopia called Harar (which we laughed ourselves stupid saying over and over again in different voices).
Once a table opened up, we took our drinks and menus to the table the lady offered us. I told D.Rough what FunHater told me – order a vegetarian combo and then a meat dish for both people to share. She checked out the veggie combo and gave it the thumbs up and we decided on a non-dry beef (meaning something in a sauce and not jerky-style beef) – we got Beef Tibs. The vegetarian combo platter comes with all 7 vegetarian options, so we knew we’d be good on that.
The food came out pretty quickly – I’m guessing because it is various states of mush assembled on a giant platter. Ethiopian food is more of a solid mush than Indian food mush, since it must sit in a polite pile on the injira and not mingle with its fellow veggie friends next to it. For those of you not familiar with Ethiopian food, you are given a giant platter with injira on it (injira is a cross between bread and a crepe). The food is placed on the injira and then you are given additional injira to eat your piles of food with, rather than a fork. So you eat with your fingers – it’s great fun, honestly.
I’ll start with the beef tibs – the pieces of meat were very tender and delicious. The sauce had a little zing to it, but it was more seasoned than spicy. There were onions, tomatoes, garlic, lots of rosemary, and jalapenos in the sauce as well, so that’s where the zing comes from I’m guessing. Don't let the size of the plate fool you - these are large platters, not plates. The beef tibs were served with a small salad. When I was with FunHater in Milwaukee, we got a salad that had tomatoes, lettuce, and jalapenos – I loved it. This salad looked innocent enough until I started to feel some heat sneaking up on me. Oh, those green peppers weren’t bell peppers, they were jalapenos after all. Whoops, my mistake. Still an excellent and simple spicy salad.
The vegetarian combo platter should not scare carnivores away. I say this only because FunHater forced me to get it the first time and told me if I hated it, he’d buy me a meat dish. It is REALLY substantial as well, so don’t think it’s light fare at ALL. It comes with all seven vegetarian options on the menu. Here they are in order of how awesome I personally think they are:- Misir Key Wot – Lentils cooked in Berbere sauce (spicy and delicious – the menu doesn’t lie) (Berbere is a spicy garlic, pepper, and onion dried spice used in meat and veggie dishes – it’s awesome)
- Shiro Wot – Spiced chickpea flour cooked in berbere sauce (also spicy and delicious)
- Atkilt – Vegetable stew (but still solid – weird) with carrots, potatoes, cabbage, peppers, and onions
- Kik Alicha Wot – Split peas (D.Rough didn’t believe me) cooked with curry and spices
- Misir Alicha – Lentils cooked with curry and spices
- Fosolia – Green beans and carrots cooked with curry and spices
- Gomen – Greens cooked how Ethiopians like ‘em
I won’t go into too much detail for each of these, but seriously, I ate (and pretty much cleaned up the platter after D.Rough got full) every single one of these things. Even though I put the greens down lower on the list, they were delicious. There were also some pickled beets on the platter, but for some reason, I can’t find a description of them, so they may have been put there by accident. I liked them, but D.Rough isn’t really a beet person, so I got them all. Ethiopian food isn’t spicy, but it makes your mouth warm. It’s not light and fluffy food, it’s rib-sticking heavy duty food that occasionally reminds me of southern home-style cooking.
We finished about 96.4% of our food on our platters. I had to, otherwise the staff will shame you into eating by saying there are starving kids in Ethiopia that would love to eat as much as you just did. And we weren’t uncomfortable full, either, like we have done to ourselves in the past – just right at the line of completely full. In fact, we DID manage to go get ice cream afterwards at the grand Old Creamery, so maybe we were 95% full – there’s always room for ice cream, right?
We plan to go back to Fasika very soon. We’ve got some friends that need to eat here, and if we have more people, we can order more things, right? There are a couple of combination platters to choose from, but I have a feeling we’ll do the vegetarian platter again and maybe some other kind of meat. That clearly is the way to go. In fact, while we were eating ours, the table next to us asked us what we got and then ordered the exact same thing as us. We’re trailblazers, I suppose!!!
Top 5 things about Fasika
1. Misir Key Wot – Lentils
2. Shiro Wot – Spiced chickpea flour
3. Beef Tibs
4. Great descriptions of things on the menu – thank you, Fasika!
5. D.Rough will say the Harar beer
Bottom 5 things
1. Surprise, those bell peppers are really jalapeno peppers!
2. The place gets crowded on a Friday night – dur, it’s awesome food!
3. Sometimes, you forget how much food you’re eating when it’s in platter form and you’re using your fingers
4. I’m positive I would butcher a number of the names of dishes here. That’s the added benefit of ordering a combination
5. Eating from a giant platter at the small bar looked tough for one couple we saw – get a table
www.fasika.com
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