Roha, Washington, D.C.

There are lots and lots of restaurants and bars planning celebrations for tonight, but they are all quite pricey. I opted for a late lunch/early dinner, so I could avoid the crowds and the prix fixe prices. I'd been looking at a big apartment building on the U Street corridor, so while I was there, I stopped in at a little Ethiopean restaurant.

Roha is a very nice looking cafe just a block from a Metro stop which looked much like any other sleek, modern bar or cafe. Other than the staff and their friends, I was the only patron in the cafe at the time. Ethiopean restaurants are unique experiences, and since there are no Ethiopean restaurants in Oklahoma, I should explain a few things. First of all, there is no silverware. Food is brought out in mounds on a large tray covered with a big piece of injera, the spongy, sourdough, tortilla-like Ethiopean bread. A basket with with rolls of more injera accompanies the meal, and one eats by tearing off a piece of injera and using it to grab or scoop up food. All of the food is much like thick stews with complex, exotic spicing. Some are hot (and sometimes *very* hot!) and some are mild. The closest thing I can offer for comparison for some of you more adventuresome Oklahomans is that Ethiopean foods are reminscent, but different from, East Indian foods (no curries).

For my food, I chose the vegetarian combination. There were eight different foods arranged on my injera-covered tray, and I'll try to remember what they all were. There were two legume dishes, a misir wot, which was lentil cooked with red pepper and onion sauce, and kik alicha, which was a yellow split pea dish flavored with turmeric and ginger. Timatim fitfit provided a bit of a familiar pico de gallo flare, since it was a cold dish of chopped tomato, onions, and hot peppers with spices, lemon juice, and olive oil. There was a garlicy, spiced collard green dish called gomen (I'm not a fan of collard greens, but I ate it anyway!). One of my favorites was the tikel gomen, made of cabbage and carrots cooked in onion and garlic sauce with ginger and delicate spices, and I also liked the foslia, a green bean dish. There was a potato, onion, and turmeric dish the name of which I forget, and in the center of the tray was an item I never quite identified, but which had a nice ground meaty texture, was very hot and tasty, and reminded me of a milder version of the fiery hot Ethiopean beriberi sauce. Everything was all so good, and I'm always overwhelmed by the variety of flavors and spicings in Ethiopean foods. There was a *lot* of food in this meal, though, so I was not able to eat the entire thing. I think perhaps if I go again, I'll bring a friend and split the meal.

After my feast, I trudged back to the hotel. I think I've come down with a touch of a cold, since I'm kinda achy and have a bit of a fever. So, I've spent the evening napping and sleeping, and I'm going to watch the New Year's festivities in the comfort of my bed.