Ethiopian Sprite

This weekend we visited an Ethiopian restaurant for the first time. We were in Madison, WI for a dance competition and were excited to learn that there are TWO Ethiopian restaurants there... Since the dance competition was held on State Street (a very fun place to visit), we decided to try the Buraka restaurant which is also located on State Street. The restaurant lies underneath the street. The entrance is only a door at the top of a staircase which descends into the restaurant...when you are inside the restaurant, you would never believe that there is a busy walkway above you.

OK...Let me start by saying that the girls DO NOT usually look so trampy, but we were in the middle of a dance competition, so they are sporting a ton of make up and false eyelashes...try to overlook that please :) They were NOT very daring when it came to eating Ethiopian food, but thought it was fun to try some type of interesting soda that had grapefruit juice in it.

The food was great (to those of us who actually tried it). We had dorowot, a great chicken peanut stew (unique to this restaurant, I think) and a couple of appetizers. The fried plantains were good and came with a really spicy sauce. The dorowot was really good...not too spicy at all.

The restaurant also had a nice variety of Ethiopian beer, coffee, and tea. We decided to sample the beer... The injera (a flat, round piece of spongy sourdough bread)...well, it must be an acquired taste...We haven't quite acquired it yet. We all tried it though and it was fun to bring some home for the grandparents to try...

All in all, our first visit to an Ethiopian restaurant was a lot of fun. We enjoyed sampling a few things and visiting Buraka. Oh, I forgot to mention...our youngest said he really "likes Ethiopian Sprite."

And after we left our Ethiopian dinner...this is what my husband decided to do for the kids - get them a slice of New York style pizza!