At first when we arrived, I was determined to cook at our hotel. After all, there was a hotplate, and I love to cook. Things I didn’t take into account: electricity (therefore cooking power) only once every two days; eating out being so darned cheap; and a complete inability to leave kids while taking off for 1/2 hour. So a couple of weeks in I gave my lentils and rice away and faced it: I was eating out 3 meals a day for 7 weeks!
Breakfast was in the guest house itself, since it was included with our daily rate. I ate crepes with honey for almost 50 days straight - yummalishiousness.  We usually ate in our room, since it was just easier… although the poor cleaning lady swept eggs out of the rug many times.
We made sure that once a day we ate Ethiopian traditional food, including injera and shiro (hot chickpea paste,) and sometimes tibs (Ethio steak stirfry) or gomen (my favorite - spinach.) We usually ate a larger lunch out, and then had dinner in at the guest house in the lounge. We’d often order eat-in from the Ice Blue restaurant across the street for the hotel - rain or shine, they would bring the food steaming into the lounge. We also tried innumerable restaurants and cafes… you can get just about any type of food in Addis, but they are especially good at Italian (remnants of the military occupation all those years ago.)  One of the girls other favorites was curry; it’s so similar in spice and eating style to Ethiopian food.
As a consequence of our eating out, and teaching the girls right up front how to behave, they are pretty darn awesome in restaurants. Now that we’re back in Canada and it costs so much to eat out, we don’t do it as often. In Addis, it usually cost us between $8-14 Canadian for four of us to eat a meal, with beverages. I think our most expensive meal (in Addis,) was $35 at the Makush art gallery restaurant (heavenly pasta) which included a bottle of decent Italian wine, pasta and dessert for four. It beat the heck out of lentils and rice on a hotplate, let me tell you!
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- With Gramma at a very traditional restaurant- the girls were absorbed by the dancing.
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- We often ate at hole-in-the-wall cafes, like this one near the university.
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- The primary reason I lost 13lbs in Ethiopia: twins on the lap for a couple of weeks. Plus no sweets, which aren't part of the Ethio diet.
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- The key to a successful dinner is to remove all extras from the table...and then let them go at it!
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- So typical Spice is neat as a pin and Sugar is super messy one of their favs from the transition home: pasta bolognaise.
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- A rare highchair experience good for holding the kids in but bad, because they pretend to be babies...
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- Spice reading the menu at a cafe accessed only by a potholey mud path.
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- Sugar diving into curry they love it because they can eat it like injera. You can get any type of food in Addis- from- Ethiopian to Vietnamese.
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- The kitsch luxury of the safari lodge in Adama.
September 25th, 2009 at 12:43 am
Love this post!
September 25th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
I could talk about food and listen to people talk about food, especially Ethiopian, all day long. Mmmmm-mmmmm!
September 29th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Ah, the food in Addis! Do I see the Lime Tree? I have been craving their falafel since I have been home. It will be the first place we go when we return in the New Year!
Are you planning a post about Lake Langano? We are intending to visit, and I love to hear how you found it.
The girls look so happy!
October 1st, 2009 at 6:57 pm
We actually were thinking of posting on Langano next… stay posted!!!
February 7th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
I just stumbled on your blog…could your twins be more beautiful????
I traveled to Ethiopia two years ago and haven’t been able to go a day since without thinking about it. People who know me are in awe of how I can relate anything to something I experienced there, but those who have been can understand.
I hope everything continues perfectly for you and your gorgeous family.
February 7th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Thanks Allison! It’s a moving place….