Wining and dining - An Ethiopian experience by Celest Lotter

I was dragged to yet another Vegan friendly spot against my will. Since myboyfriendhas decided to go full vegan on me, I have been to every tree-hugging, hippie-happy, sandal-wearing restaurant in Cape Town. Needless to say, I was less than excited at the prospect of yet more tofu, espciallyEthiopiantofu (have you seen how thin those people are??)We walked up a narrow flight of stairs and right into a display cabinet filled with jewellery - and that's when I knew we were off to a great start! The restaurant smelled amazing! Like... panAfrican/spice markety smells... it was quite overwhelming and wonderful. Even though webooked a table, we were asked by thehostessto sit in the lounge for a while on what I can only describe as hobbity chairs.About ten minutes later, she came up to us carrying this weird basket of sorts. I was expecting her to show us to our table, instead she brought our table to us!This Table is about 60cmin diameter (if that) - so I thought this was just going to be a place for us to put our drinks on (but I will get back to that). Grant (the BF) proceeded to bravely order some sort ofEthiopiantea (crazy) and me being a creature ofhabit, I looked for any kind of wine I couldrecognize(not to worry, they have a good selection for us wine lovers to choose from!)Then it came time to order food. The menu is very well explained: All meals are well described and easy to understand as anything inEthiopianAmharic is translated intoEnglish. They did not however say how the food was going to be served!InitiallyI was after theprawns, however was coaxed into eating vegan choices. Thank goodness I didn't order the prawns, as the food is served in a bowl, which isliterarythe size of the table... it fits into the woven basket which 'is' the table. The bottom of this bowl is lined with traditionalEthiopianrice bread, which resembles southAfricanmillie pap (maize meal)...so it looks like aMilliepap pancake. All the dishes we ordered arrived in little dishes, and without warning weretippedupside down onto the rice bread...meaning we then had little mounds of everything.Our charming waiter thenarrivedwith a funny kettle/come silver coffee pot. At first I thought he was going to pour ussome water, but the hand washing gestureswerea dead give away that we were not going to be drinking any of this. So we washed ourhands and were then brought another bowl of what I honestly believed weretowelsto dry our hands. Thesewere in fact morerolled up rice breads (like a rolled up herring mops). Wethen tucked into the mounds of food.. and if you were wondering when thecutleryarrived...it never did.