Washington Post
Break Bread at Meaza - By
Eve Zibart
''... It's been a while since I had that happy an encounter, but the injera at Arlington's Meaza -- injeras, in fact, the darker made entirely of teff and the paler half teff, half whole wheat -- has reconciled me to what can only be called the white-breading of many Washington Ethiopian restaurants. That, and the tripe.
"Bread" is almost universal shorthand for sustenance, both spiritual and physical; and in few cuisines is it more central than Ethiopian, where the injera, the large, soft pancake that is torn up and dipped bite by bite into the dishes, serves as plate, utensil and napkin as well as bread. Consequently, even a meal of the most exquisite lentil stew on humdrum injera quickly goes flat.
Teff, the small but nutritionally potent grain traditionally used for making injera, is expensive to import, and most Ethiopian kitchens and injera bakeries in the area have switched to part-teff blends or use buckwheat and other similarly sour doughs instead. (Injera is as pure a dough as it comes, with flour, water and a few days' fermenting, which gives it both the spongy, air-bubbly texture and the distinctively pungent flavor.) But none is quite as puckery, or as dark brown, as pure teff, and for those who love the real stuff, the teff injera at Meaza, though no longer made in-house, is as good as it comes, great pizza-size pancakes for $5 an order (about a half-dozen!). Even the half whole wheat, which comes standard unless you request the other, is better than most.
The other reason to eat at Meaza is almost everything else, and the comfortable tables of lingering guests attest to it. The tabletop trays -- Ethiopian meals are served family-style with the various dishes spooned out onto one layer of injera -- come with another twofer, pools of spicy berbere sauce and piles of the salt-chili mix mitmitta for personal heat adjustment, since even if you ask for spicy meats, the kitchen is American-wary. The portions, on the other hand, are definitely upsized/Americanized; the pile of kitfo, the Ethiopian steak tartare, must have weighed a pound..." >>more
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