Had a foodie outing with my friends and we decided on Ethiopian food as it is easy to share with a group. One of my friends recommended Meal by Genet at Little Ethiopia for authentic and gourmet Ethiopian food. The interior is modern and elegant. Our very passionate waiter suggested two chef-choice combo plates so we could try everything except for the trout.
Love the neatly folded Injera (thin sponge “crepe” you used as the utensil to pick up the food). I also like that it’s a bit less sour tasting than the ones I had before.
Here’s one of the combo plates. The entrees and the sides were beautifully plated on a injera.
On this plates, the entrees are:
(Center) Yebere Siga Tibs: beef sauteed in onions, green chiles and Ethiopian butter
(upper left) Chicken Tibs: chicken sauteed in onions, green chiles and Ethiopian butter
(left) Tofu Tibs: tofu sauteed in onions, green chiles and Ethiopian butter.
I love the sauteed beef, quite intense and rich. It reminded me of dry curry and I could imagine it go along well on rice! The Chicken and tofu tibs are flavorful.
The entrees on the 2nd plate are:
(Center) Dorowot – spicy chicken stewed in red pepper sauce with Ehtiopian butter
Covered by a Injera at the bottem is the Irutye’s Yebegsiga Alitcha: lamb stewed with garlic.
Both are very excellent and were the highlights for me. I particularly like the lamb stew, the meat was was very tender and the stew was very flavorful.
Mamoshye’s Special Kitfo: steak tartare, Ethiopian butter and spices.
This arrives last. An interesting dish, I didn’t expect to see tartar in Ehtiopian food. It’s very rich and perhaps I was getting full by then, I could only eat a bit of it.
We got to try all the sides. They’re all tasty and my favorites were the Mesir (red lentils) and Alitcha Kik (Yellow Split peas). I was glad for the salads and vegetables to balance off all the rich meat stew.
Overall the food is excellent and more refine tasting than the ones I had before. It was fun to eat all the delicious food with Injera but some part of me wish I could eat all these delicious stew with rice. The injera could fill you up pretty quick too, so go easy on it and only use a little bit for each bite.
Meal by Genet
1053 S Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90019
Tags: Ethiopian
A visit for some tasty Ethiopian has been long overdue for me, I usually like going to Rahel’s for their heartier teff but I wouldn’t mind lamb in my myriad of dishes 🙂
thanks for the informative write up
This looks spectacular! Looks like your “passionate waiter” knows what he’s talking about! What was the best of all these dishes? and I agree, it looks like rice would go nicely with all of this
~Nancy Lewis~