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Written by DCist Contributor Andrew Chriss
Enjera Eritrean Restaurant opened in Crystal City in May 2007. On an early visit over the summer, the restaurant was not very inviting from the street level, which was disappointing due to the vast amount of outdoor seating space available. The menu was crudely assembled from what seemed like loose-leaf, and the signage for the restaurant did little to sell the restaurant besides intrigue passersby to ask, "What do they eat there?"
HGTV talking heads would be proud, as the curb appeal has significantly increased since that first visit. A new sign, with a fancy new logo, now hangs above the restaurant. A new, laminated, professional-looking menu is available for perusal. Enjera has also mounted a focused advertising campaign, particularly in local Arlington/Alexandria newspapers. The website is also a welcome enhancement to their cyber-presence, although the information regarding their menu doesn't match with the menu at the restaurant and has broken links, in the case of the vegetarian selection.
The restaurant has three options for seating. You can sit outside on the patio, which has both a deck and street level seating. It's set up in such a way where you don't feel crowded or that you can interact with the passers-by. There's also a bar inside, although the mechanics of eating with the traditional bread that the restaurant takes its name from with the various entrees, while sitting at a bar is a logistical challenge. For agoraphobics and introverts alike, the dining room has seating for between 40 and 50, as well as areas for private parties. If conversation with another human being isn't enough to pass the time, the main dining room has a TV set to Telemundo where you can watch your favorite telenovelas on mute while regional music blares in the background.
I started the night off with glass of hot tea, while my dining companion ordered a Perrier, which I learned was an aid in digesting the food (I thought he was just being fancy). The hot tea has hints of cinnamon and cloves, and would be the perfect ending to any meal served off of any menu of any cuisine. We then ordered three entrees: lentils, awaze tibsi, and kitfo.
The lentils were stewed with tomatoes and onions, and were a perfect crispy-but-not-undercooked texture. My one complaint is that the lentils were a bit oily. The awaze tibsi, which was also ordered on the first visit, is beef cooked with tomatoes and onions (I sense a theme), and served with awaze, a paste of hot peppers mixed with garlic and ginger, among other spices. While the sauce and veggies were flavorful, the beef was on the gristly side, which was all the more unfortunate considering the fact that we didn't get any napkins until we asked. Also, I'm sure that a cow is a cow is a cow across this beautiful Earth, and that feeding patterns may vary from culture to culture, but I'm pretty sure that some of the beef pieces were actually lamb (of which this food blogger is not a fan).
Last but not least, the kitfo is a dish of beef mixed with herbs and Eritrean butter, with a side of mitmita spice for dipping. Unless specified otherwise, the dish is served raw. On this night, we indeed specified otherwise, but the beef was still brought out raw. The texture of the kitfo is smooth, likely owing to the butter, although the taste of the mitmita struggled to exert itself against the richness of the butter. The cost for entrees is reasonable, ranging around $9 for the vegetarian options, $10 for the beef and chicken, and a couple bucks on top of that for lamb.
For those that have trouble deciding, Enjera also offers two samplers; one which solely has vegetarian dishes and another which contains a derho tsebin (chicken served with boiled egg), the aforementioned awaze tibsi, with lentils and a side of cabbage on the side.
While the food was generally enjoyable, there were major issues with the service. I've already noted the lack of napkins and the "You'll have your meat RAW!" decision that was made for us. A gentleman at another table apparently had the same decision made for him, and he bravely sent his food back. Most glaring, though, the absent periods - where the servers are either gathering food off of the line, chit-chatting, or whatever else - were excruciatingly long. The long wait prompted a 20-something female at another table to say rather audibly, "Is our waitress dead?"
If you're thinking, "all the food you've described and the manner in which it's served sounds an experience at an Ethiopian restaurant," well, you'd be kind of right to think that. Given the well known grievances between the two cultures, their cuisine is remarkably similar. If any Eritreans out there can point us to some Eritrean-specific dishes we neglected to order, we'd love to hear about them.
549 South 23rd Street (between South Eads and South Fern)
Arlington, VA 22202
Five blocks south of the Crystal City Metro Stop
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Thank you for not posting any pictures. Don't think I could handle pics of people eating babyfood with dishrags.
And double-thank-you for not describing the food as "uninspired."
I thought it was strange that you described the lentil dish as "crispy". Crispy is not a word I would associate with a stewed lentil dish.
Are there any comparable Eritrean restaurants you would recommend in the District for those of us who live in DC?
"The hot tea has hints of cinnamon and cloves, and would be the perfect ending to any meal served off of any menu of any cuisine."
Wow, that is some cup of tea.
When possible could you try to include hours of operation in restaurant reviews, etc. when they're available. I know sometimes you can't dig them up on AOL Cityguide or Zagat; if you have someone visiting the restaurants in person for a review and the hours are posted by the entrance, it'd be great if the reviewer could jot down the hours and add them to the DCist post. I wanted to try Thanh Son Tofu after reading a very positive review on here, but they were closed when I went by...which would have been a bummer avoided if their hours were on the article. I'm not saying the reviews are lacking -- it's great to read opinions from other local non-Sietsema foodies, but going that little bit above and beyond the effort of national restaurant reviewers would make the content on DCist even awesomer.
That's a good idea, indiecognition. We'll try to include hours of operation when we can. Thanks for the suggestion.
Looks like a brown-fenced version of the IVY in LA.
lab rat - 9th and U is pretty much Eritrean/Ethiopian food ground zero. Etete and Queen Makeda both rate four-out-of-five shrieks on the monkeyrotica scale.
Eritrea? That's not a real country. Seriously. It's the name of a planet in another galaxy, taken from some 1950's science fiction novel.
I guess that's why all the servers wear silver jumpsuits and make little guns out of their fingers and go "pyoo! pyoo!" at imaginary spaceships. Apart from that, the food is excellent.