Here’s what I’m going to do—intersperse this article with bits and pieces about Ethiopia to make up for all the really interesting stuff about Ethiopian food I may have left out.

And when you do get around to reading the sign, it says “Best hamburgers and Ethiopian food”. And you may think, well, what kind of freak niche-clientele are they trying to appeal to? Or, there must be some conflict going on between the chefs.

When I saw the sign I had this image of two chefs with different visions for Harar eyeing each other with contempt.

…Which leads to the first digression. Ethiopia has surprising ethnic diversity, with citizens representing an array of East African ethnic groups. The country is divided into nine ethnically administered states. The relationship between the states, ethnic groups, and the federal government is complex and tenuous. Harar is the name of a city and province in the Harari dominated Eastern region of Ethiopia.

Harar, the restaurant, is a small place. Guests are usually seated in the back area, which has an intimate patio feel to it. Thatch lines the walls and ceiling. Diners can sit at either a western table, with four legs, or an Ethiopian table, called a masoub. Think a basket with an upside-down sombrero on it.

I’ve been to Harar, the restaurant, twice and each time there has been a Zen-like quiet in the dining area. I kind of liked it. Ethiopian cuisine doesn’t come with silverware, so the place was free of the clanking and scratching of knives and forks on china. Guests don’t have to speak over the sounds of dining, so the conversation tends to be muted or murmured.

…I was amazed at how well children in Ethiopia spoke English. I interacted with a handful of ragamuffins on the streets of Addis Ababa, and they just blew me away. They would talk and talk, doing so with charm. I was on vacation from teaching English in Japan at the time. Japanese kids tended to get hung up on—and inhibited by—grammatical rules and sentence structure and would never speak off the cuff.

I ordered sambuss, a deep fried lentil dumpling, as an appetizer, and the vegetable combo and kitfo (ground beef) as entrees. The sambuss crust was a bit heavy and the lentil filling too light for my liking. Watery filling spilled onto the masoub with each bite I took.

Almost all Ethiopian meals come with a basket of rolled injera, thin, spongy bread with which people scoop up their food.

The veggie combo offered both mild and spicy vegetable stews, called wat, apportioned on top of an edible injera placemat. The spicy stews, or qey wat, had a welcome fieriness, making entrées out of what would otherwise be a collection of side dishes. The meat scrap and injera stew, known as fitfit, also added bulk to the platter.

On the other hand, the mild stews, or alicha wat, seemed too bland and lacked definition. The spinach alicha just tasted like boiled spinach. A potato alicha looked and tasted overly starchy.

The kitfo arrived in a small bowl and looked appetizing. However, it proved to be too filling. Kitfo includes clarified butter, so it’s easy to get filled up fast. After three or four scoops with the injera, I couldn’t eat any more.

…Ethiopians explained their food situation to me like this: When there’s drought, there’s famine. When there’s flooding, there’s famine. I was in Ethiopia during a time when there was neither drought nor flooding. Believe it or not, I saw an abundance of food. On the outskirts of most towns and villages I passed through, I noticed monstrous bales of tef, the grain used to make injera, lining the side of the road.

I drank a glass of honey wine, or tej, with the meal. I didn’t care for it that much—thought it tasted watery with an astringent aftertaste. But, don’t listen to me. To be honest, I’d never drunk tej before.

Our server, a young Ethiopian woman, was attentive and polite. She readily answered questions about the menu, restaurant décor, and her home country.

Harar Ethiopian Restaurant makes for an exotic dining experience. I can say that the entrees tasted the same as they did in Ethiopia. There’s no hybrid, Americanized ethnic food here. Well, there’s the hamburger, as advertised out front, but I stayed away from that.

Harar Ethiopian Restaurant

2432 El Cajon Blvd.

San Diego, CA 92104

(619) 295-3735

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