One way to take the pulse of a new neighborhood is to visit its Ethiopian restaurant(s). DC is famous for Ethiopian food, with Little Ethiopia on 9th Street, and many other establishments scattered around the city.
Dynasty Ethiopian Restaurant, 2210 14th Street NW, is now my closest Ethiopian fix. I visited before our kitchen was fully unpacked from our Baltimore move. It was a Sunday night and the Columbia Heights restaurant was totally empty and dead. However, the staff was friendly and promptly served us up hot mounds of veggie food.
The vegetarian combination platter (pictured above) was large in quantity, although not outstanding in quality on the night we visited. Perhaps I've adopted a jaded DC attitude but the dishes seemed more bland than necessary, especially the yekik alicha (aka yellow split peas). The misir wot was the star attraction; it's hard to go wrong with spicy red lentils. The restaurant also charges for extra injera, which is tough for poor injera management-types, like myself. They have a full bar.
More exciting than the food at Dynasty was a celebrity spotting. While my boyfriend and I paid the check, Ohio Congressman
Dennis Kucinich walked in with a friend. Oddly, he didn't stay to dine. We overheard him say something to the effect of "this feels like a Congressional dinner" before he dashed away to his vehicle parked out front. This was actually my second spotting of the famous vegan politician. (I've seen him enjoy a full meal at Chinatown Garden.) I do hope he found some dinner in the end.
p.s. I'm late to the party but am going to blog twenty
VeganMoFo posts this month. The Vegan Month of Food is what inspired me to start blogging in the first place. Lately, I've just been writing restaurant reviews. This month I'll endeavor to branch out with some different posts too. The vegan blog rolls are always inspiring with so much creativity and variety on display. It is fun to browse around, although it does make one famished.
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