(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

I’ve been back in Kingston for a few days now but wanted to share some more photos and stories from Washington D.C.

After visiting the Pentagon on my last full day in Washington, I went on an Ethiopian lunch quest.  I have been a huge fan of Ethiopian food ever since my friends Keith and Erika introduced me to it in Toronto in the early 1990s.  My favourite Ethiopian food so far has been in Winnipeg, of all places.

Many of you will know this, but just in case…Ethiopian dining generally consists of a series of somewhat curry-like, and often spicy, “sauces” served on a very large crepe/pancake called injera.   Injera tastes a little bit like sourdough bread.  You eat with your hands;  tearing off pieces of the injera and scooping up the sauce with it.  You get extra injera on the side but the idea is to also eat the injera that held the sauces.

I read that Washington D.C. has the second-largest Ethiopian population of any city in the world…including cities in Ethiopia!  Ethiopian restaurants were allegedly ubiquitous; one D.C. company even offers an Ethiopian food tour!  Surely, I would have no trouble finding one for lunch.   I decided to travel to the Adams-Morgan neighbourhood – it promised an eclectic mix of ethnic eateries, record stores and artsy shops.   It sounded somewhat like Queen Street West in Toronto (before the national chains moved in).

My record shopping was successful.   Alas, I was getting very hungry and I could only find 2 Ethiopian restaurants after a long search.   One looked very appealing but was closed for another four hours.   The other claimed to be open but I couldn’t see any customers inside.  Disregarding one of the cardinal rules of travel dining (“avoid if nobody else is eating there”), I took a quick peek inside.  It was dark – I think most of the light was usually generated by the wall of (dark) TVs near the bar.  A friendly server confirmed that they were in fact serving lunch and that I could have a seat in the “dining room”.

Well, the dining room had definitely seen better days.  It featured a “rustic” 1970s wood-panel/abandoned sports bar look that had nothing to do with Ethiopia.  Not even a faded travel poster!  Only one customer (drinking tea but not eating food) was there, but he left as soon as I sat down.   I tried not to look too closely at the place; thankfully, the absence of light made close inspection difficult.

I didn’t have the heart to leave, and I was really really hungry, but was eating here really a smart thing to do?  I considered the consequences – the most harm would likely come from dodgy meat.  I decided on the vegetarian lunch platter – a series of lentil- and spinach-based sauces on injera.  My anxiety increased somewhat as the server spent a very long time on the phone discussing the secretive delivery of a package to an apartment building.  I couldn’t help hearing the extensive conversation about Apartment 105, as there was still nobody else in the restaurant.

I needn’t have worried – while it wasn’t the very best Ethiopian food I’ve ever had (the injera was somewhat powdery and two of the sauces could have used some warming), it was good enough and I cleaned up everything on my very large plate.  One of the lentil/berbere sauces was especially red, spicy and delicious.

I spent most of the afternoon wandering “Embassy Row” and Georgetown.  There are nearly 200 embassies here, in addition to various international organizations such as the Organization of American States.  Even the smallest nation has an impressive embassy building, while some of the larger ones have massive office blocks.

Canada’s embassy is downtown rather than on Embassy Row.  It is functional rather than visually appealing, although Canada (like most of the larger countries) also has a separate home for its ambassador near Embassy Row.  These generally are designed to impress, even though an increasing amount of international diplomacy and negotiation is now carried out by private lobbying firms on behalf of nations.  I didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures of diplomatic buildings – there was a very heavy security presence.  The Russian and Syrian ones felt especially tense.

I ate dinner at a tiny Japanese/Korean place in Crystal City, Virginia.  I properly researched it beforehand and knew that I had nothing to worry about!

I’ll be back in a few days to share some nice Kingston-area photos and drop a few hints about my next trip.  It’s the longest one yet (almost 3 weeks) and, from a linguistic perspective, will be the most challenging one so far too.