Restaurant Project: A

So last week, before the bubblegum hit the fan and I managed to catch every possible ailment passing through the area, umbran and I started out on the Restaurant Project.

We had a lot of incredibly interesting and good-looking recommendations for A, and I had a lot of fun looking through all of the places that were suggested, but we finally decided to go to Addis Red Sea for a handful of reasons. It was someplace new, it was a cuisine neither of us were familiar with, and it was fairly local and easy to get to.

I've had Ethiopian food once before, thanks to an outing with ausir, but my fella had never had the chance to try it, and part of the point of this project is to try new things. Plus, it feels like an accomplishment to finally actually set foot in a restaurant I've walked or driven past over a hundred times.

Addis Red Sea is a fascinating place. It's one of at least a dozen or more little store-front restaurants on Mass Ave between Davis and Harvard Squares, and I admit I tend to assume, because they're so small and unimpressive on the outside, that they're all going to be mediocre counter-service places. And in this case, at least, I was incredibly wrong. It's small, true, but the restaurant itself is beautiful. A little dark, a little close, but that makes it feel more like a place where you could share a secret than a place that's cramped and uncomfortable, if that makes any sense. It's all dark wood and red tones, and curled-up comfort.

Because we're both fairly new to the food, we decided to order a combination plate that offered a half-dozen different dishes - we've done this before when trying out new restaurants and cuisines, and it hasn't served us wrong yet.

The food came out on one big platter, served on a spongy bread that I can't find a name for anywhere on the menu, with more bread to use as both plate and utensil. And it was all very, very good. The first thing I tried was the Doro Alcha - chicken in a mild butter sauce with ginger and onions. It was a little more mild than I had expected, and a little sweeter as well. In general, the latter was true of a lot of the dishes. I always tend to think of onions as sharp or spicy, but most of the food here seemed to bring out the sweeter, rounder flavor of them. There was also another chicken dish, Doro Tibs, that was a lot stronger. it was in a red pepper sauce, with a sweet blend of spices that only kicked in and started to burn a minute or two after you ate it.

The Zegne, a kind of beef stew, was a little tough, but also good - a little oniony, with a delicious sauce that was somewhere between the two other dishes in spice level and flavor. But the best thing, by far, was the lamb dish - Lega Tibs, lamb sauteed with onions, pepper, and rosemary. It was incredibly rich, and spicy without being overpowering, and umbran and I did our best not to fight over the last bits.

There was also a salad of tomato, onions, and vinegar that made a good palate-cleanser, and a dish of collard greens, Gomen Wot, that was much better than I had expected it to be - bitter without being unpleasant, tart, and not at all waterlogged or bland.

All in all, it was a delicious dinner, and a fun experience. I was expecting the food to be a lot more similar to Indian in feel and flavor, and it was surprising how different it was, given the similarity of presentation. The spice blend was a lot sharper, and the texture and mouthfeel was very different. I'm glad we tried it, and I'd be happy to go back - even if this doesn't become an everyday restaurant, I think it's a place I'd have a lot of fun introducing friends to.

So, any thoughts of your own? Or any recommendations for B?