Washington DC – Day 62 (July 24, 2005): Meskerem

We went out for lunch today. The three of us (me, Salman, and Mariam, who just came two days ago for a visit) picked an Ethiopian restaurant, Meskerem, for our afternoon consumption. Meskerem is located in the Adams Morgan area, which is probably the most unique but undercovered DC neighborhood. It’s so ethnic, cool, urban, and organic that I didn’t feel like I was in DC the whole time. Weird, huh? You just have to visit this area whenever you come to DC. It’s not a hugely popular tourist destination, so it’ll be like the beaten path for your itinerary.

Meskerem is authentically African. Indoor settings (except for the basement) and furniture were different from most ethnic restaurants I’ve been in. The table is the most striking. It’s a basket, standing low at knee-level, where we eventually shared the food. I ordered Yebeg Fitfit, a lamb-based dish, and Tej for the beverage. While we all ordered different things, we ended up sharing due to the large portions and serving style (remember the basket?) We ate with bare hands, scooping up the dish with our injera, a spongy pancake-like staple bread (similar to Indonesian kue apem but without the sweets). The food was so good that I even raided Salman and Mariam’s injera after they were too full to continue ^.^

We were just enjoying ourselves that day, I think taking more than 2 hours in that restaurant alone. Good experience, I highly recommend Meskerem.

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