As I've discussed in previous posts, my fiancé Alex and I have been celebrating all of our special occasions with Ethiopian food for years, be it birthdays, anniversaries, New Years Eve, new jobs, big accomplishments, Valentines day, and even the Ethiopian New Year! We love it so much! I've even heard Alex describing it to others by saying, "It puts every other cuisine to shame." Where we grew up there aren't really any Ethiopian restaurants, so none of our friends or family had ever tried it. In the past few years, we took my parents there a few times, my best friend (and now Maid of Honor), my sister (to be) and some new friends to Mesob, and every single one of them loved it! Even my dad, who is a pretty traditional American Dad eater, really liked it. So that's saying something.
Wouldn't it make sense to serve this food at my wedding? I mean, it's the best. And it's our favorite.
I think we'd be doing our guests a disservice if we didn't serve them Ethiopian at our wedding!
I'd like to give this food a proper introduction to all who aren't familiar with it. If you are familiar, you can just look at the pretty pictures, because this will all be old news to you.


When we go out for Ethiopian, we like to get at least one appetizer. Lately, we are all about sambusas, a spicy lentil-stuffed pastry triangle. But we've been known to get Ingudai Tibbs (spicy mushrooms), Kategna (injera bread with spiced oil), and Azifa (spiced lentil salad), too. The food is served with Injera, a sourdough flatbread, and is used as your utensil. Eating with your hands is somehow incredibly gratifying! The injera compliments each bite. You just tear off a piece, and grab a bit of food, but be sure to grab with your right hand if you are dining with true Ethiopian food enthusiasts.


Some of our favorite dishes are pictured below, starting clockwise at the top: Tikil Gomen (cabbage and potatoes), Butecha (fluffy spiced chickpeas/my personal fave), Misir Wat (spicy lentils), Atkilt Alicha (green beans and carrots), Dinich Wat (spicy potatoes), and Shiro (spicy ground chickpea dip) in the center. These are staples at most Ethiopian restaurants, but they are done best by Mesob!


Alongside you are served extra injera to grab every last bit of food from the platter! Towards the end, I like to grab the injera off the plate that the food was placed on. The flavors of the stews had seeped into it and made it the best injera ever!

I hope that helps any skeptics understand not only how important Ethiopian cuisine is to us, but also how delicious and exciting it is! It will make our wedding dinner unique, but also very special and personal! I'm sure I won't need to convince anyone after they have tried it. Maybe after having it they will be making trips to Jersey just for the food, like we often do! We're so excited to share it with everyone we love.