Injera: the bike wheel-sized base of Ethiopian cuisine

Ethiopian Food Photo: Wolkite Restaurant)

Foodie scenesters are descending on long-serving Ethiopian restaurants in search of this spongy flatbread topped with mountains of dried meat and veg.

Ethiopian food has come a long way since Billy Crystal’s problematic joke about a bad date in When Harry Met Sally: “I didn’t know that they had food in Ethiopia?” he says. “This will be a quick meal. I’ll order two empty plates and we can leave.” Truly it’s staggering to think it took Sally so long to see the light.

I was reminded of this punchline when I was confronted with an actually enormous plate of Ethiopian food, so big they serve it on a tray, at an Ethiopian restaurant called Wolkite in Holloway, north London.

Injera is the latest world dish to fall foul of the hip young things. Its appropriation is still in its early stages, although the first time I come here, the crowd was almost all white, too poor to smoke “straight” cigarettes yet rich enough to own £600 bikes. But that is because it’s Friday night and, as Isaac the owner tells me, only white people come on a Wednesday and Friday because these are fast days in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which means they can’t eat meat. “And what’s the point of eating out if you can only eat vegetables?” Well quite.

Read more at: The Guardian