House of Selassie - Shona's mini-review

[ROLAND's NOTE: This review was sent in by Shona (thanks!), one of our readers]

House of Selassie (Selassie Ethiopian Restaurant)2145 Granville (Granville and 6th)  ph: 604-736-2145 This delightful Ethiopian restaurant can easily be missed, overshadowed by the art galleries and home décor shops lining South Granville.   Try not to miss out on this hidden adventure in eating!

If you haven’t had Ethiopian food before, prepare for some fun.  You don’t eat with forks (although the restaurant does provide them if you like), instead, you use “injera”  a spongy, airy, sourdough-like pancake to help pick up the variety of deliciously spiced stews.  More injera comes whenever you run out....but beware....you can really fill up on the bread!!

Food/Menu - menu is an array of various dishes - lots of vegetarian  dishes, but also meat dishes - so great place to bring people with different  food preferences.  Prices are very reasonable ranging from $1.50-$3.00 for vegetarian side dishes.   Main courses range from $9.50-$12.95.   There are also combination dinners for 1  ($12.95) to 2 people ($23-27) with $8 per extra person.

My friends and I just couldn’t decide what to have, so we decided on the  "Banquet Ethiopicus" which the menu describes as  "a sumptuous feast of the variety of entrees, house specialties,  vegetarian and  side dishes.  An all you can eat deal but with no encores and no take homes. Minimum of 4 people needed"  - Price $14.95/person”

First came the main communal plate with one injera open like a crepe with spoonfuls of various vegetarian side dishes along the edges (such as kikalicha - split peas simmered  with  green peppers and spices; kinche - bulgur; azzifa - green lentils spiced with green pepper, onion and mustard seed; keysir salata - potatoes and beets in vegetable oil and lemon juice).   

Throughout the dinner, the waiter (who I think is the owner) came by with the hot entrees which he spooned out onto the main injera plate and the dishes came one or two at a time.  So we had time to enjoy and savor each dish:
 -asbehsa gomen - collard greens/spinach
 -gomen wot - vegetable stew of cabbage carrots and potatoes
 -bueg ttibs - marinated lamb with various spices
 -doro wott - chicken with egg simmered in berbere sauce and alicha  sauce  (this was a popular favorite amongst the group)
 -assa ttibs - shrimp with stir fried onions, green peppers and mushrooms
 -kitfo - ground beef with spices and seasoned with clarified butter
 (usually  this is served rare but the owner brought it to us cooked since he was aware that some people don’t like rare beef)

…I wish I could tell you what else was part of the Banquet, there were about 2  or more dishes to come.....but we had to tell the  owner to stop (much to his disappointment and ours!).  We had to rush off to another  engagement, and admittedly, we were all really full.

The mystery for our meal is that we never knew when the food would stop coming.  We kept thinking we were at the last dish when suddenly yet another dish would come!  It would have been really nice if we had known how  many dishes were coming so we could have paced ourselves.  We could have asked but we were too busy enjoying the food! 

At the end of the meal, the plate of injera had sopped up all the sauces  from the dishes and the 'piece de resistance' was eating the injera  plate.

Service - delightful, eager owner;  wanted to make sure we tried  everything;  eager to please and very nice.   If you are going for the "Banquet Ethiopicus", don’t be in a rush or have any deadlines – there’s lots of food and it comes at a leisurely pace.

Decor - not the best (TV in dining room); simple not fancy - some decor probably  inherited from the restaurant before ; fine for casual dining