Reviews: New Eritrea Restaurant and Bar (San Francisco)

the vegetarian combo, served with salad on traditional injera bread

If you've never had Ethiopian or Eritrean food, you're definitely missing out. There are many wonderful Ethiopian restaurants (we're going to admit right off that we don't know the distinctions between Eritrean and Ethiopian food) around and if you live in a major city, there's likely at least a few great restaurants. If you're in San Francisco, we can definitely recommend the New Eritrea Restaurant at Irving and 10th in the Inner Sunset. As is traditional, all the dishes are served on injera, a sour flatbread that looks like a cross between a tortilla and an ace bandage. You eat the food with your hands, tearing off bits of injera to pick up the food. No forks allowed:)

Agnieszka and I ordered our food to share. Like in the picture above, the dishes are placed on injera with a salad in the middle. We ordered one meat dish and one vegetarian dish. The meat dish was alicha begee, or "mildly seasoned cubes of lamb mixed with potatoes, carrots, peppers, curry and Eritrean spices." It was spicy and wonderful. We couldn't decide on just one vegetable dish, so we took the vegetarian combo, made up of tumtumo, "lentil beans pureed and simmered with Eritrean spices, tomatoes, onion and herbs," hamli, "collard greens and spinach simmered in authentic Eritrean spices," vegetarian alicha, a "mildly seasoned mixture of potatoes, carrots, cabbage and garlic authentic Eritrean spices" and alicha-ater, "chickpeas pureed and simmered in onion, garlic and authentic Eritrean spices." We both had water on the side and I drank a Hakim stout, a dark beer from Ethiopia.

The flavoures were strong but well-balanced, there was enough spice for both of us, the injera was wonderful, the beer complemented the meal well, the staff was friendly, helpful and attentive and it was all reasonably priced. Whether you already love Ethiopian food or it's your first time, head out from Market St. on the N-Judah to the Inner Sunset and check out this wonderful, warm restaurant. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!