Gojo Ethiopian Cuisine...

As part of our adoption training, our workbook asks us to eat some food that our children may eat on a regular basis, or might be used to.  So that lead us to Gojo Ethiopian Cuisine in Grand Rapids. We invited some friends to join us, and set out to see how our taste buds would handle a little Ethiopian spice.

The restaurant is a very quaint, family owned establishment.  I fell in love with it right away.  It wasn't very busy, but even so they had our table already set, with a "reserved" sign on it.  The walls are lined with pictures of children from Ethiopia that had been adopted by families in the area. The owner, Sam, was incredibly helpful to us, and helped us order.  We all ordered the Ethiopian tea, which was REALLY good.  I am a tea drinker though... so that might have helped with my reaction.

Sam suggested we order some food from the traditional menu.  It comes on a platter like you can see below.  It is served on Injerra, which is sort of a sourdough flatbread.  Each person is also given their own piece of Injerra, which is rolled up like a tortilla.  You can see one on the green plate in the background of this picture.

We had nine people with us, and we ordered 3 plates.  Two of them had spicy beef and spicy chicken, with Ethiopian salad in the middle, lentils, and vegetables.  The plate below was the special.  It had spicy lamb, which was almost everyone's favorite.  It also came with Ethiopian salad, green beans, collard greens, and the white stuff is a spiced yogurt.

You can see in my next picture, I am holding my Injerra.  We were told to tear off a little piece of the Injerra bread, and use it to scoop up the food from the platters.  There were no plates, and no silverware. Everyone ate off the same plates.  It was an incredibly intimate way to eat, and I think it says a lot for Ethiopian people!  This is a very social way to eat as well, and it was fun and different from what we are used to!

I was preparing myself for some really spicy food - which is not usually my number one choice.  But to be honest, I really liked it!  The spicy food wasn't "burn your mouth" spicy, but really very flavorful.   It was spicier than I cook, but it didn't taste "hot", but just spicy.  The veggies were all prepared differently than I am used to, but I really enjoyed eating in a new way, with the Injerra, and plan on going back many times!  I can't wait to take my parents, and brothers and sisters there.

The last picture is what one of our platters looked like when we were done.  You can tear the Injerra on the bottom of the plate and eat that as well.  We definitely had more than enough to eat. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, even if the food wasn't what they were used to.   I hope to become a regular at Gojo's!