Addis Abeba at The Night Heron

228 Nicholson Street
Footscray 
Victoria
3011

Although we'd previously popped in to the Night Heron for drinks, we'd not checked out their food options. These include the in-house 'FriendTime kitchen' on Sundays and on other days ordering from the near by Addis Abeba and coming in March Mexican from Los Pollos.

It took a couple of visits before we realised that the bar now occupies the space that once contained Taj Palace an old favourite haunt of ours. The new fit out is quite a change, with a wooden bar featuring some great craft beers.

Out the back the small garden area offers a surprising number of tables...

...and shade from a surprising number of trees.

On Wednesdays there is a regular deal of a veggie combo from Abbis Abeba and a pint of the house lager for $20.

The full menu is also still available.

The better half went for the Sega Firfir. The lamb was finely chopped and the torn injera took up the sauce full of flavour from the tomato, garlic, onion and chilli.

I took up the special offer and received my special vegetarian combination which featured all of the  veggie options available on the menu.The mild Shero featured chick peas and splint spicy powder cooked with onion and garlic. The more spicy Miser Wet had a kick with its red lentils cooked with onion and garlic in a chilli powder sauce. The Vegetable Combination mixed lentils, yellow peas, potato, carrot ,cabbage, silver beet and chick peas in a spicy sauce. Crushed fava beans cooked with onion, tomato and garlic went into the mellow Foul. The Firfir was a stew which consisted of tomato, garlic, onion and chilli powder tossed with injera. Along with this came an Addis Salad, all on top of a slightly darker than regular injara. Each element  was great and I loved the variety of flavours and textures.

It was pretty quiet the day we ate, but on other visits it has been busier, although that has been later on with more of a drinking crowd. The barman mentioned that somedays it gets busy with diners too especially on Wednesday when the deal is on. It took about 25 minutes for our meal to make it down the street, and it is great to have the option to get some of Footscrays great Ethiopian food in a different type of venue. It's also good to see the varied businesses of Nicholson street working together.

Le Riad Restaurant, Adelaide

314b Pulteney Street
Adelaide
SA 5000

We were out hunting for a spot to eat on a quiet Sunday evening in Adelaide near our accommodation and werne't finding anything pushing out buttons, until we spied Le Riad, right next to The Coopers Alehouse on Pulteney Street. It had been a good while since either of us had eaten North African food, so after a quick scan of the menu we pushed open the big wooden front door and headed inside.

The decor reminded me of Parisian Moroccan eateries with lots of wall hangings, carpets and decor almost to excess! We were shown to a table towards the back, near the exotic bar area.

In the end we both opted for similar dishes, with my selection being the Seafood tagine which combined squid, prawns and fish with tomato, garlic, lemon and capsicum cooked with hot Moroccan spices and herbs topped with parsley. The dish came out bubbling and the flavours combined nicely. The tagines came with rice or bread, and I made an error selecting the bread, as the half a khobz was pretty small, and extra serve of rice wasn't much more substantial and overpriced at $4.

The fish tagine consisted of simmered chunks of fish in a spicy tomato, onion, garlic and herb sauce with capsicum and olives.

The meal was reasonably priced overall coming in just over $50. The service was friendly and efficient and Le Riad is a good option if you are keen for some North African cuisine at this end of Adelaide.

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Abesha Ethiopean Restaurant

327 Barkly Street
Footscray
VIC 3011

Although it's not far from home, we hadn't ever visited Abesha until deciding to try it recently on a Saturday. The colour scheme is certainly true to the country of origin.

Inside the decor is fairly basic, but there are quite a few African touches, and the clientele was mixed.

Behind our table there was a coffee set.

There were a couple of imported Ethiopian beers options on the menu, and we and enjoyed refreshing our memory of both.

The menu (which I couldn't find online so have included below) features a range of Ethiopian dishes, some of which were familiar, some less so.

We shared the vegetable sambusa's as an entree, which was served with a sour cream dip.

The crisp pastry enclosed a satisfying lentil heavy filling.

The Abesha special features a range of dishes served on injera. The kay watt, of chopped lamb in a berber sauce, red onion, garlic and ginger and the alicha wat worked well with the range of veggie and lentil based dishes.

I had the vegetarian combo with a large serve of the rich yemiser wat lentil stew and six other unique other flavours.

The bill including four beers was just over $50. The service was friendly and the atmosphere relaxed, with some groups sharing drinks and others also eating. We certainly left feeling heavy bellied and may well return.

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Sahara

Level 1
301 Swanston St
Melbourne, 3000

Sahara is fairly easy to find if you are looking for it, with a big sign above the stairs to the first floor.

Upstairs the decor has a north african flavor, we were seated on a window table with views out over Swanston St. There were several other tables filled, but there were also quite a few empty tables.

The booking through Yumtable worked, although the deal seemed no different to the standard lunch specials. There were 5 or so dishes at $10 and 5 more options at $15 including a free drink.

We both ended up going for $10 options, Phil went for the Moroccan Barramundi with wedges, which turned out to be small, and not as meaty as normal and not particularly Moroccan!

I had the Vegie Tagine with rice, which was nicely flavoured with a variety of veg and chickpeas, and had more of north african

The service was friendly and efficient, and we werewn't rushed out the door after finishing our meals. It wasn't a bad spot and I'd think about going back.




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Dinknesh

227 Barkley Street
Footscray Vic 3011

Dinknesh had often been quite empty when we'd wandered past before, but reading Lauren's review tempted to try it.

We popped in on a cold Friday evening and were the first customers for the evening, but a few other tables were occupied over the course of our meal.

We grabbed a couple of the excellent Ethiopian beers.

We thought we'd ordered some veggie sambusa's, but ended up with meat ones, which were tasty, and the dipping sauce was very spicy!

The combination platter was loaded with a big variety of dishes and came with rolled up injera. The beef, lamb and chicken wot's or curry's were all great and distinctly flavoured. The potato and beetroot dish worked well and as did the cabbage. Some of the dishes were a little on the oily side.

The highlight of the meal was the red lentil dish, called misir kik I think, arrived sizzling in a earthenware jug/bowl, had an earthy and almost meaty in flavour and had a nice kick of chilli, we asked for more injera to help finish it all!

The service was very friendly, and helped advise us on our selections and tailor the combination to our needs. All the food and 3 beers came to $47, and I'd certainly consider another visit.





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Cafe Lalibela

91 Irving St
Footscray, 3011

We've eaten at Cafe Lalibela occasionally, but not that often, as M isn't a big fan of the injera bread on which everything is served. We decided to give it another go, and we do like the restaurant atmosphere, on of the nicest vibes in Footscray, whether we've been 2 or on a table of 15...


I'd tried Ethiopian food once before I had visited Lalibela, and have tried one other restaurant serving food from this part of Africa, so it is hard for me to say how authentic it is... The menu starts with a description of the cuisine and how it is presented and eaten.

We ordered the mix of vegetarian dishes and a lamb curry, as can be seen these were served on the injera bread. We ate it with our hands following the tradition (and because you don't get any cutlery). Both the meat and vegie curry's were tasty in a distinctive way. Grabbing the food with the injera bread is a great way to eat in my opinion, but once the bread starts to get soggy and cools it can put people off.

Cafe Lalibela is a great place to eat, and pretty keenly priced, our meal came to $31 including corkage, there are good imported Ethiopian beers on offer too.






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