Day: February 23rd, 2008
Don’t let’s start
They Might Be Giants, a.k.a., John Flansburgh and John Linnell, were scheduled to perform at the Borders at the Time Warner Center this Saturday afternoon to promote their newest children’s CD/DVD Here Come the 123s — follow-up to 2005’s Here Come the ABCs. It had been quite a while since I’d seen the Brooklyn duo live, and it seems that in the intervening years, they’ve become better known for their children’s projects and television theme song work.
Very well known, in the former case, if this afternoon’s crowds were any indication. It seemed that the entire stroller brigade population of the Upper West Side had convened on the bookstore at Columbus Circle, where dozens of toddlers were propped up on adult shoulders, their little faces peering above the stacks like rows of prairie dogs.
Later that night, CF’s birthday dinner at Ghenet — a “particularly vegetarian friendly” Ethiopian restaurant on Mulberry. The yellow banner outside touts it as the place “Where Angels Eat”; “ghenet” is an Amharic word meaning “paradise”. Turns out that CF and MT are something of Ethiopian food aficionados, having made the rounds at most of the Ethiopian restaurants in New York: Meskerem, Queen of Sheba, Awash… though as of that night, not yet Marcus Samuelsson‘s newly opened Merkato 55. Ghenet is their favorite of the bunch, though.
While the rest of the party dug into the meat dishes, we three split the vegetarian combo platter, which seemed to consist of a bit of every vegetarian dish offered at the restaurant. I counted at least eight scoops in all, served up on a palette of moist, tangy injera flatbread whose torn off pieces doubled as utensils. About half of the items were bean-based, the rest were combinations of potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, collard greens and beets, with variations on seasoning, textures and spiciness.
It had been a couple of years since I went out for Ethiopian, and in the midst of such tasty food, I made the amateur error of eating just to the point of satiety. Note: that spongy injera will, and did, grow to several times its original size in the stomach — an expansion that no amount of tej (Ethiopian honey wine) would tamp down, making for some moments of uncomfortable fullness later at Sweet & Vicious.
Search
Popular Tags
Categories
Archive
- July 2010
- July 2009
- January 2009
- November 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006