Shuls & Shpayz: A Royal Feast For My Birthday

After a pleasant birthday which included lunch in Bryant Park and surprise bitesize Baked By Melissa cupcakes from coworkers, the topper was dinner with friends. Given my choice of destination, with Alisa in tow, I settled on Ethiopian, and as it would be new to me, I thought it good to have an experienced patron alongside me. I had heard that there are no utensils, that you eat with your hands, so of course this piqued my curiosity. Jon had sworn on Ethiopian food as one of the best kinds he's ever had so every once in a while, I would suggest it but other people in our group usually were not so enthusiastic on the prospect. So, it would be, on my quarter century anniversary, that I would dine on Ethiopian food with my good friends Alisa, Meryl, and Julia. Having done a bit of intel work in advance, I determined Queen Of Sheba to be the best bet for a first taste. Despite the connection to King Solomon and the association with the Jewish Bible that the restaurant name has and the growing visibility of Ethiopian Jews today, mostly in Israel (especially as Miss Israel 2013 is originally from Ethiopia), this restaurant is not run by Beta Israel and is not kosher. So the 4 of us agreed to meet at the restaurant around 7pm, which is over on 10th Avenue at 46th Street. Though it was great weather outside and I would have liked to sit near the open windows, we were stuck in the back which was quite dark considering the light outside. What I had not realized about Queen Of Sheba is that there is a section of seating featuring small chairs and some sort of traditional basket table which everyone gathers around once the food is presented. This is a conducive layout considering the more popular dishes tend to be sampling platters for multiple people. Because I was running late, of course, I did not have the opportunity to choose this unique seating arrangement and thus the girls chose to be boring by sitting at standard wooden tables and chairs. Meryl and I each ordered a glass of honey wine (tej), which proved to be delicious. In order to write these posts, I usually consult the restaurants' menus on their websites to capture the description of what was ordered however the menu of Queen Of Sheba's website seems utterly different than the one I recall reading at the restaurant so much so that I did not see the appetizer we ordered and the sampling platter lists each component by its Amharic name rather than the English descriptions I remembered on the menu at the table. In any case, the medium for consumption with Ethiopian cuisine is their native bread, known as injera, which is like a sticky and spongy pita. NY Magazine describes it as "made with the prolific, sturdy grain, tef, which is ground, fermented, and cooked; bubbles splattering up through the batter pock-mark the bread and give it texture." It continues: "In little piles on the bread are intricately spiced and braised meat and vegetable dishes. The way to get at the food is to tear off swatches of injera and use them to scoop up the food. " And by the end it says your hands are the color and tang of berbere; this is the part I did not like so much that I went to the bathroom multiple times to wash my hands. The stickiness of the injera would leave my hands feeling powdery, dry, and sticky. The appetizer we ordered definitely contained some tomatoes and peppers and came served in the form of a pilaf. As described before, it came atop a spread sheet of injera from which you could tear the injera and pick up the food in it. This is also something which requires some learning, especially how much can be handled inside a scrunched up piece of injera without it falling all over your lap. Another thing I recall is that there were no plates so I felt compelled to eat over the large platter; it was definitely not a smooth experience. In order to get a wide array of tastes, we decided to go for the Taste of Sheba under the Sheba Combination Sample Dishes. According to the menu of the Queen Of Sheba website, it basically consists of an assortment of most of the beef and lamb dishes, which once they come on the platter, somewhat resemble curries and are not easy to distinguish from one another. We took turns eating each selection and naming which were sub-par and which we liked, and essentially just aiming to clean off the platter. The highlight was probably picking up the remnants with the injera as at this point several tastes blended together. Overall, I was disappointed with my first Ethiopian food experience, and probably even a bit more disappointed because I had high hopes going in. That said, I would definitely try it again, though perhaps at a different restaurant (or maybe it is necessary to have the magic of sitting around the traditional basket table). For a more succinct description of visiting Queen Of Sheba on the West Side of Manhattan: I've included the review from my other consulting blog Eating The World In New York City, keeping mind the review is from nearly 2 years and prices have since changed...

"'Ive been known to complain about Ethiopian food before, claiming all its little piles of colors end up tasting the same in the end, using many similar spices throughout the palate of meat and vegetable dishes. At Queen of Sheba, the city's finest example, my gripes bear little resemblance to the reality.

At first glance, the restaurant is similar to others in town, darkly lit with homages to the home country and a quiet atmosphere. Sheba has a full bar and even a couple Ethiopian beers if the mood strikes you. If you have a group and the chance to sit in the back left of the restaurant, jump at the opportunity. The seating might not be comfortable, per se, but everyone gathered around the traditional basket and eating from the center feels very good. This is not a cuisine to be reserved about eating, so everyone just needs to dig in and get their hands dirty.

The basic component of an Ethiopian meal is the bread, injera, a large flat sourdough. Injera is not for everyone's taste, but I have always enjoyed it even when the rest of the meal has left me wanting. The bread here (below) is of top quality, light and soft, almost feeling like a warm blanket you could pull over yourself.

The trick here is eating with the bread to grab mouthfuls, figuring out what size bread and what quantity of food make a safe scoop. There is a science to making sure none of it falls or gets all over your face and hands, but that is part of the fun.

I have never been to an Ethiopian restaurant and not ordered some kind of sample platter. This meal was no exception, and the dark illegible photo you see below is a combination of both the Taste of Sheba combination sampler ($19.95) and Sheba vegetarian sampler ($15). Four of us split this and were plenty full, as the food lasts as far as you want it with an unlimited supply of injera.

I noticed on the menu that the place also has $10.50-$12 lunch specials, which would be a great option for anyone nearby in Hell's Kitchen."