Revelry Review: The World We Found

Ever since taking a post-colonial literature class in college, I have been obssessed with Indian literature (both literature about India and literature by Indian authors). My favorites include Salman Rushdie, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, Rohinton Mistry and Thrity Umrigar. I've read most of Umrigar's novels and loved them all, so I didn't hesitate to pre-order her latest, The World We Found.

The synopsis from the Amazon page: "As university students in late 1970s Bombay, Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita, and Nishta were inseparable. Spirited and unconventional, they challenged authority and fought for a better world. But much has changed over the past thirty years. Following different paths, the quartet drifted apart, the day-to-day demands of work and family tempering the revolutionary fervor they once shared.

Then comes devastating news: Armaiti, who moved to America, is gravely ill and wants to see the old friends she left behind. For Laleh, reunion is a bittersweet reminder of unfulfilled dreams and unspoken guilt. For Kavita, it is an admission of forbidden passion. For Nishta, it is the promise of freedom from a bitter fundamentalist husband. And for Armaiti, it is an act of acceptance, of letting go on her own terms even if her ex-husband and daughter do not understand her choices.

In the course of their journey to reconnect, Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita, and Nishta must confront the truths of their lives—acknowledge long-held regrets, face painful secrets and hidden desires, and reconcile their idealistic past and their compromised present. And they will have to decide what matters most, a choice that may just help them reclaim the extraordinary world they once found."

This was not my favorite Umrigar novel, but it was a quick and interesting read that contained great characters that will remain in my mind for a long time. You will definitely root for these characters and weep with them. The book's weakness, however, might be that it tried to deal with so many themes--friendship, love, belonging, the past, religion, feminism, same sex relationships, illness, women's rights, family, classism, politics, regret, modern day India--that it didn't settle on any one for quite long enough to do it justice. By the end of the novel, I still felt like there were a few loose ends that weren't quite followed through to their end.

Revelry Review: ShopHouse

This past weekend Jesse and I tried a new-ish fast food restaurant, ShopHouse, the latest creation of the founder of Chipotle. Touted as a "southeast Asian kitchen", you can either build a bowl or have a banh mi sandwich with a variety of possible fillings. I had been looking forward to checking it out for a few months now. If I had checked my expectations at the door, I might have liked this place better than I did. I had dreams of yummy warm green curry and firm chunks of tofu with a variety of delicious veggies.

However, as a vegetarian, there was no green curry for me. In fact, the only sauce that did not count fish sauce as an ingredient was the tamarind vinagrette. Okay, fine. I was disappointed but I figured I would just appreciate that they told me and move on. The tofu looked more like the tofu scramble I make at home than any tofu I have ever had at an Asian restaurant. It was very tumeric-y and SUPER spicy. I wish I had been warned.

When you are essentially eating a bowl of brown rice and tumeric-y tofu, it would be great if you were allowed to choose more than one vegetable. My sauteed long beans were delicious but I wasn't given that many of them. I would have loved to try the charred corn, eggplant and Chinese broccoli too. Chipotle lets me have whatever toppings I want and I wish this place did too. The saving grace was the green papaya salad, which provided some relief for my super spicy lunch.

Overall, I thought ShopHouse had large portion sizes and I appreciate having a new fast food vegetarian option, but I just wish it had been less spicy and contained more veggies. Hopefully they will refine their menu over time.

ShopHouse is located at 1516 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC.

Vegan Mofo 12: Kaya's Kitchen

Last weekend Jesse and I took a road trip to New Jersey for a comedy show. Before the show, we took a small detour to Kaya's Kitchen, a vegetarian restaurant in Belmar. The menu is very extensive and it took me a long time to decide what to order. It's rare that I can order from the entire menu, especially one so big! We started with wildberry iced tea and some bread and olive oil. Then I had the Thai Sweet Potato Soup, which was sweet and spicy and very comforting:

Jesse began his meal with the cajun tofu salad. It had seasoned grilled tofu, greens, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, pickled red onion, sunflower seeds, sprouts and a cucumber ranch dressing. People, this is a small:

For his entree, Jesse had the "Acapulco Loco", which was diced veggie nuggets, peppers, corn, onion, black beans and broccoli in a spicy Mexican chipotle lime sauce over rice.

I was in the mood for a sandwich, so I tried the "Island Grilled Tofu Sandwich", which was Jamaican jerk tofu. Mmm.

To finish, Jesse got a vegan mint cake. Perfect ending to a great meal. We will be back for sure!

Revelry Review: Vegan For Life

Vegan? Thinking of going vegan? Love/like/know a vegan? Want to eat less meat or dairy but not sure how to do it in a healthy way? If so, then you need this book. Vegan for Life by Jack Norris and Virginia Messina is a must-read. It's essentially an encyclopedia for all things nutrition-related as they pertain to veganism.

There are entire chapters dedicated to certain vitamins and nutrients. I thought I knew all there was to know about b-12, but I was wrong. They also discuss raising vegan children and being vegan during pregnancy, veganism for the over-50 crowd, transitioning to a vegan diet, managing your weight, heart disease or diabetes, sports nutrition and whether or not soy is safe, plus much more. This is a terrific resource to have on hand in case you need an answer to a question that you or someone else has.

The only thing I didn't like was that the "Why Vegan?" chapter was left for the very end. It seemed out of order! Overall though, this is an information and fact-packed book that provides all you need to know to be a healthy plant-eater. I never once felt like I was reading something too scientific or boring, which books of this type can sometimes be. Jack and Virginia have inspired me to clean up my diet (which was about 90% vegan anyway), given me a new knowledge base, and have given me responses for the many, many questions and concerns that others have about veganism.

Revelry Review: The Murderer's Daughters

I read The Murderer's Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers based on Jenna's recommendation. Without wanting to give too much away, I will say that Merry and Lulu's lives are touched by an immense tragedy: their father goes to prison for killing their mother. That's not a spoiler. It's on the cover and happens within the first twenty pages of the novel.

The rest of the novel is about the next thirty years of the girls' life, exploring the ways in which the Merry and Lulu, as well as the people around them, are affected by what happened with their parents. We watch them grow up while living with terrible memories and scars. Their father's presence, and lack thereof, looms over the rest of the novel like a giant shadow.

Unlike Jenna, I didn't think that this was one of the best books I ever read. What is was, however, was a great beach read. A great book to snuggle into bed with at night. A great break from heavy non-fiction reads. I didn't want to put it down so that I could find out what happened to the girls. I would recommend it if you are looking for something lighter to read that is more than just fluffy chick lit.

Revelry Review: State of Wonder

I had high expectations for State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I loved Bel Canto and thought that Run was an entertaining read. Maybe that was the problem.

Let me back up just a bit.

The premise of State of Wonder is this: Marina Singh, who works as a researcher for a large pharmaceutical company, is asked to travel to the Amazon when the company receives word that one of its employees, Anders Eckman, has died under unclear circumstances. In order to clarify what happened, Marina must locate Dr. Annick Swenson, a gynecologist who has spent years studying a tribe whose women have been able to give birth into their late 70's with the hopes of obtaining the secret to extended fertility. Anders was sent to Brazil to gauge the progress of Dr. Swenson's work after she failed to send regular progress updates.

The reader comes to learn that Marina's and Dr. Swenson's paths have crossed in the past. And Marina is romantically involved with someone at the company. And she acts as the liasion between the company and Anders' distraught family. And she must deal with a whole cast of characters that await her in Brazil, not to mention the diseases, insects and other challenges that await her in the jungle.

Much like in the other books I've read by Ann Patchett, I appreciated the character development in this book. I cared about or was interested in a lot of them, particularly Marina and Dr. Swenson, but some seemed like extras on a movie. There was so much going in in the plot that it was as if Patchett kept adding characters and trying to flesh them out just to move the complicated plot along and get to the end. I was left wishing that she would've found other ways to reveal some of the characters' traits rather than adding in more people and storylines. I will, however, be left thinking about the details she imbued into the story, particularly the descriptions of the jungle, for some time to come.

Revelry Review: Two Kisses for Maddy

A few years ago, I was introduced to Matt Logelin's blog via Glamour.com's Storked! blog. With tears streaming down my face, I spent a few hours reading back posts from the blog, which details Matt's life after his wife died just one day after giving birth to their daughter, Madeline.

At first, Matt's choppy, short sentences, laden with curse words, gripped me with the way that they painted the portrait of a first-time Dad reeling from the grief of an unthinkable and life-changing tragedy. What made me keep reading was being able to watch from afar as Matt and Maddy made new memories together. Over the course of the last three years, I've read with envy about Matt's around-the-world adventures, most with Maddy in tow, the grueling process of writing a book on his experience, and on finding love again.

Last week, his book, Two Kisses for Maddy, was released. I read it in about two hours.

Even though I knew how the story ended, I still cried and laughed and marveled at the life that Matt and Maddy have created. The book seemed to fill in the spaces between the blog posts. Two Kisses for Maddy is incredibly sad, very brave and ultimately hopeful. Read it--but not without some tissues nearby.

Revelry Review: Nothing to Envy

I recently finished the book Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. I picked this one up because #20 on my 30 Before 30 list was to read a book on each of the following places: China, North Korea, Iran and Africa (on all of it or on any specific country). I realized that even after having obtained a MA in International Affairs, I still had gaps in knowledge about certain parts of the world and I wanted to do something about it. I saw this book recommended in several places, so I knew this would be the one I read on North Korea.

Demick follows the lives of six North Korean defectors. She uses these stories to portray what life has been like in North Korea under a repressive regime. Starvation, black outs and fear of being sent to labor camps for any infraction permeate daily life. Propaganda in support of the regime knows no bounds. This review of the book gives a great summary. I particularly like the remark that Demick "does not tell, she shows." Most of the defectors ended up in South Korea (either directly or by way of China). The comparison between what modern day life is like in the two countries is heartbreaking.

I confess to having been largely ignorant of the situation in North Korea before reading this book, other than having read Somewhere Inside by Laura and Lisa Ling, which is what initially sparked my interest in learning more. Nothing to Envy was both intriguing and horrifying. I gasped out loud at certain sections. I highly recommend it since it is written in an easy to read and interesting manner but packs in a ton of information.

Revelry Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Wow. Wow. Wow.

I'm always stunned when I learn about a piece of history that seems much more like fiction. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is just such a case. With each page, I couldn't help but shake my head in disbelief.

In the 1950's, Henrietta Lacks, a young African-American mother of five, is diagnosed with a cervical tumor at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Her doctor removes some of her cancerous cells without her knowledge. Henrietta eventually passes away from her disease, but her cells live on. HeLa cells, as they are known, multiplied and multiplied...becoming the first human cells to do so in a laboratory. Since that time, HeLa cells have been used in experiments that have led to some of the greatest scientific innovations in the past century.

Skloot weaves together this story with the story of Lacks' husband and children in modern-day Baltimore. How is it that the children of the woman who made one of the most important contributions to science can't afford their own health insurance? She examines what has become of Henrietta's descendants and the impact that the knowledge of what happened to their mother's cells has had on them.

Skloot raises important questions about poverty, science, research and medical ethics in a book that reads more like a novel than reality. It is fascinating, deeply troubling and essential reading about medical issues that are still important today.

Revelry Review: Will Write for Food

The first book I finished this year (and couldn't wait to tell you all about!) is Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Blogs, Reviews, Memoir and More by Dianne Jacob.

A bible for all things food-writing, I highly recommend this for anyone that has any interest in the area at all. Written in a tone that seems like you are having a conversation with a friend, this is a must-read that you won't want to put down. Chapters include information on writing a food blog, developing a cookbook, the art of memoir, fiction that includes food, freelancing, writing restaurant reviews and getting published.

Jacob not only provides a wealth of information for the aspiring writer, she also includes writing exercises and book suggestions at the end of each chapter. Additionally, she interviewed many well-known foodies for the book and the advice and stories of people like Anthony Bourdain, Ree Drummond, Ruth Reichl, Julia Child, MFK Fisher, David Lebovitz, Molly Wizenberg and more appear scattered throughout the book. There isn't a single question I could think of that isn't addressed somewhere in the book.

One word of warning: reading this book will make you want to quit your job so that you can divide your time between creating in the kitchen and writing up a storm on the computer!

Revelry Review: Great House

This was one of those novels that is so good, you need to wait some time before telling others about it. It requires a bit of internal processing before you can verbalize that way that it affected you. It is one of very few books that I ever wanted to go back and read more than once, if only to revisit the way the beautiful prose made you feel. This is a novel that I wish I had written myself, especially since I have always been interested in its main themes. I highly recommend that you read Great House by Nicole Krauss.

Not wanting to give anything away, I will say that Great House is a novel made up of several people's stories, all of which revolve around a single desk. The stories intertwine as the reader is carried along a journey through many years, many countries and many lives. It explores themes of loss and memory, as well as people's relationships with each other, with history and with time.

The prose is so beautiful that at times I found myself reading and rereading lines, each time having them take my breath away. One quote I liked in particular was, "We search for patterns, you see, only to find where the patterns break. And it's there, in that fissure, that we pitch our tents and wait." She also writes that the characters "bend...around the shape of what they lost, and let everything mirror its absent form."

Unlike The History of Love, which is another of Krauss' fantastic works, this novel is a not as optimistic and rather quietly reveals the tragic melancholy, longing and loneliness that each of its characters has lived. You can read reviews of Great House here from NPR or here from the New York Times. It is no wonder why the New Yorker named Krauss one of its "20 Under 40" writers to watch this past summer.

Revelry Review: Room

When you are a book addict like me, it is not often that you come across something completely unlike anything else you've ever read. Room by Emma Donoghue is such a book.

I've seen many reviews of this book. Not only has it appeared in the fall book preview section of nearly every magazine I read, it has also been written up in the New York Times and The Washington Post, not to mention just about every other national paper. Donoghue herself has been interviewed all over the web, including here and here. Needless to say, the hype surrounding this book left me a little wary. Could it really live up to the expectations I had?

Yes, yes it could.

This is the story of "Ma" and her son, Jack. They are both being held hostage by their captor in a small room. In fact, Jack, who celebrates his 5th birthday in the beginning of the novel and whose voice is used to tell this story, was born there and considers it his home. With a small skylight as their only window to the area that Jack simply calls "Outside", they have created their own world inside "Room". Jack sleeps in "Wardrobe" at night, in case a man known only as Old Nick comes. His Ma goes to great pain to give Jack what she can given her circumstances, but little by little the reader is exposed to just how small their world really is. Without giving much away, their lives suddenly expand beyond the confines of "Room" and they are forced to leave familiarity behind and deal with "Outside" head on.

I admit it took me awhile (at least 40 pages) to adjust to reading a book that is narrated by a five year old who has only ever interacted with his mother in a tiny room. In fact, I nearly stopped reading. However, Jack's voice is this novel's genius. Even given that this sort of crime has appeared more and more in the news in recent years, I had never even considered many of the psychological and child development issues of people who have experienced what Jack and Ma have. The mental scars of their experience linger long after they have become physically free.

Audrey Niffeneger, the author of The Time Traveler's Wife, said, "Emma Donoghue's writing is superb alchemy, changing innocence to horror and horror into innocence. Room is a book to read in one sitting. When it's over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days." I couldn't agree more.

Revelry Review: Medium Raw

I recently finished reading Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People who Cook by Anthony Bourdain.

Now, I should confess to you that I LOVE Anthony Bourdain. I watch episodes of "No Reservations" endlessly. I think it is smart, well-written, honest and interesting. Tony goes places and does things that I can only dream about. I loved Kitchen Confidential too, mostly because I spent a few years working full-time as a waitress and thought it was time that someone was honest with the general public about restaurant life.

However.

Either it's my old age or Tony's that has led me to conclude that Medium Raw is just a tad too....well, mean. Don't get me wrong--I found it interesting and I like reading his point of view on the food world. Let's face it--tons of bad food-related media is thrust at us daily. But was it necessary to essentially filet Alice Waters? And I know he hates the Food Network, but I didn't know just how deep that hatred ran. I don't like Sandra Lee either, but his description of her is a bit over the top. It felt like essay after essay kept getting more and more angry.

I should back up and say being over the top and a little gruff is why so many of us love Anthony Bourdain. I just wish this book had read more like the honest critique he is known for and less like one big attack on all things mainstream in the foodie world.

Revelry Review: Every Last One

This past weekend I finished reading Every Last One by Anna Quindlen. I loved two of her previous books, One True Thing and Black and Blue, so I decided to give this one a go too. What I had forgotten in the many years since I read those other two is that Ms. Quindlen is a master of making you feel the terrible emotions that people go through when they experience a tragedy.

I can't say too much without giving away the heart of this book, but here is a brief summary: Mary Beth Latham is married and has three children. The first half of the book weaves an intricate portrait of the ins and outs of their family life. It is pretty ordinary. Then something absolutely horrible happens. I was pretty blindsided because I had purposely stayed away from reviews of this book so that I wouldn't know what it was. Simply put, there is a Before and an After for Mary Beth and the rest of the book follows her as she attempts to give meaning to the After.

I cried. And then I cried some more. If you've read Isabel Allende's Paula or Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and liked them, then you might also like this portrait of grief and loss.

Revelry Review: Secret Daughter

South Asian Author Challenge, Book 2/5: Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

This novel tells the story Kavita, a woman from a small village in rural India who is forced by her husband to surrender her newborn daughter to an orphanage. In their culture, sons are prized and daughters are seen as simply another mouth to feed and dowry to pay. At the same time, Somer and Kris, a childless couple in California, are seeking a way to finally become a family. They decide to look at adopting and go to an orphanage in India that Kris' parents recommend. These two stories become weaved together in a novel that spans approximately 25 years.

I loved this book. It's a touching and beautiful portrayal of what it means to be family. It deals with ideas of love, loss, roots, culture clashes and a sense of belonging to a place. The characters were all well-developed and I identified in some way with every single one of them. I loved that a novel that begins with a story about how little girls are seen as worthless morphs into a novel about what it means to be a woman and all of the roles that woman may take on over a lifetime regardless of where they are in the world.

You can also read this op/ed by the author on the 100 Million Lost Girls of India.

Revelry Review: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

On the train ride back from New Jersey this past weekend, I started and finished The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. I've seen this novel reviewed everywhere--magazines, blogs, newspapers, etc--so I was anxious to read it.

The story revolves around the life of Rose, who has an unusual skill: she can taste emotions in her food. This talent first develops when she is nine years old and is eating her mother's lemon cake, which she says tastes like absence and hunger. At first Rose tries to get rid of this ability by avoiding eating anything that is not pre-packaged and made by a machine. The story follows about 10 years of Rose's life and as she grows up, she learns to use the talent to her advantage. Along the way the reader learns about Rose's family through her peculiar skill.

Steeped in magical realism, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake lets the reader into the ins and outs of a family through food. A sense of loneliness and disconnect seems to pervade Bender's writing. While I wasn't completely blown away by this one, I continue to think about the book's lonely, quiet moments long after reading the last page.

Revelry Review: Forks over Knives

Last night Jesse and I attended an advance screening of the new documentary, "Forks Over Knives", here in DC. A Q&A session followed the screening with Dr. Neal Barnard of PCRM, Dr. Michael Greger, Gene Bauer from Farm Sanctuary and Bruce Friedrich from PETA.

The film follows the career trajectories of Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, who are advocates of using a plant-based diet to halt and even reverse the so-called "diseases of affluence": heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. It also follows the experiences of several people (including the director!) who suffered from these problems and were following a plant-based diet in an effort to change their lives. It was like seeing The China Study brought into visual form. I wanted to show it to every member of my family that suffers from these health problems.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, the Q&A portion was cut a bit short (let's be honest--I could listen to that group talk all day!). However, it did raise interesting questions, such as should we be using the term "plant-based diet" or "vegan" and what are the implications of each. I find this discussion fascinating. On the one hand, saying "I eat a plant-based diet" seems a lot more palatable to some people, but using "vegan" more often might help to take some of the negative stereotypes out of the word. This led Jesse and I to a discussion about eating mostly plants for the animals versus for health (or both or a host of other reasons) and how those groups of people are really at a disconnect some of the time. I think this movie, about the health benefits, seems fit for a different audience than say, "Earthlings", even if they get at the same essential end result.

Someone also asked about educating their current doctor or if they should change doctors if they received push back on this issue. Dr. Barnard's suggestion, which surpised me a bit, was to continue with your regular doctor, as long as they have good diagnostic capabilities, but follow a plant-based diet and hopefully the changes that brings will show your doctor how useful it can be.

The film is expected to be released into theaters in the fall and available for purchase on DVD later this year or early in 2011. I am hoping it reaches a very wide audience because the impact could be huge.

Eating my words.

Go ahead....do it. Call me a hypocrite. Because I am.

Back in July I ranted against the Kindle in a big way. I thought they were pointless and only added more technology to take care of and worry about to our lives. I thought they were destroying the relationship between book and reader. I shuddered at the mere thought of buying books of the paperless variety.

And so I continued and continued to buy books. I hate library books, if I haven't yet shared that quirk with you. And just when I thought I had no more space to put them, I bought some more books and made the room.

And then Jesse and I got an apartment together. And that apartment does not have the space for all of my books to come live with us. We would seriously look like an episode of "Hoarders" if I tried to make the space for them. So I went through and separated the "I want to have this for my collection" and the "This was signed by the author" books from the "I read this in two hours by the pool" and the "WHAT was I thinking when I bought this?!" books. I donated the latter two categories. I got rid of (so far) SIX bags of books. And I still have multiple bookshelves full.

Then I won a gift card to Amazon. My first thought was, "Man, there are lot of books on my wish list that I could buy with that!". Then I realized that was the addict speaking. So I sucked it up and got a Kindle. I'm not sure how much I like it just yet. It's light and I love being able to get books in 60 seconds but it's definitely not the same. It will be useful for travel for sure, especially when I finish a book and I am not near a bookstore, but also for chick lit, current events books, newspapers, etc. that I don't want to have forever. It will definitely save trees. And it will save a little bit of money since e-books are cheaper than the real deal.

But mostly it will save Jesse and I from drowning in paperbacks.

Vegan Kickstart: Day 3

Turtle Mountain Foods, thank you for being awesome! Last night I got the So Delicious Coconut Milk Minis. So delicious indeed. They are a smaller cousin to a dairy-free Dove bar. They are super rich from the coconut milk but since they are half the size of a regular one, they come with only half the guilt! I liked that the chocolate was pretty thick and the ice cream itself had a slight coconut taste. An added bonus is that their products have both coconut milk and soy milk varieties, so you can mix it up if you aren't crazy about getting a lot of soy in your diet. I also spied mini ice cream sandwiches at the store that I think I need to try next.

My absolute favorite ice cream is their Purely Decadent Mint Chocolate Chip. If you are craving ice cream or chocolate, I highly recommend you check it out!

Have you tried any Turtle Mountain products? If so, what did you think?

Revelry Review: Etete

This past Sunday Jesse and I went to Etete for lunch, an Ethiopian restaurant located at 1942 9th St, NW in DC. Jesse had never tried Ethiopian food so I wanted him to experience it. (Him: "Are they going to bring us silverware?" Me: "No." Him: ".....Ever??") The good news is that he really enjoyed it!

The inside of the restaurant is small but warm and welcoming. The menu is pretty extensive but typical for an Ethiopian restaurant. Clearly we weren't the only ones wanting to eat here as it was pretty full at nearly 3 pm on a Sunday afternoon. We started with a sambusa, which is basically an Ethiopian lentil-stuffed empanada. It had all sorts of spices and definitely had a kick to it.

For our main course, I got the vegetarian sampler (a little bit each of collard greens, spicy red lentils, pickled cabbage and carrots, a split pea puree, something with potatoes and carrots and a few other things that I wasn't exactly sure what they were). Jesse ordered the Yemisir Wat, a red lentil stew, which was delicious. And, of course, injera. The injera here was so light and fluffy and not the least bit greasy, which was a nice surprise. I could have just eaten the injera for lunch--it was seriously that good! I also learned from Wikipedia that the teff flour used to make injera is full of iron, which is a bonus.

This was by far the best Ethiopian food I've had in DC (and I used to think Dukem was unbeatable!). If you are in the area, I would highly recommend you check it out!

{Photo credit: Kevin L}