Almaz - Ethiopian

I love it when other people decide where to eat. While A was here, she'd compiled a list of a few places she wanted to try. Because I didn't feel like driving up to the northeast, and because I'd actually wanted to go there the night before, we ended up having an ethiopian feast at Almaz Cafe. I'd passed by this place dozens of times before in my life, but I didn't realize it served food until a few weeks ago. I thought it was just a little coffee shop. It's much more!

The place is pretty small though, there's some seating downstairs, and a little bit more in the upstairs. They have regular coffee shop and cafe fare (coffee, sandwiches, breakfast) but also have a small menu of ethiopian items. We got the Dorowat, which is a stewed chicken dish, and the Veggie Combo, which came with misir, tikil gomen, kik-alchia, shiro, and one more unknown dish. What does all this mean?

The chicken is stewed in a red pepper sauce, but is not spicy at all. It's full of flavor and super juicy. It's all pretty much dark meat, so nothing dry here. The misir is red lentils in berbere sauce mixed with chopped onions, tikil gomen is a veggie stew which was my absolute favorite, kik-alchia is yellow split peas, and shiro is mixed greens which was my least favorite. I'm just not that into greens. The one mystery dish was a red colored dish at the top of the photo. Whatever it was, it was still good. All these items get served on a big plate on top of injera bread. Injera bread is a spongey crepe like bread with a sourdough flavor. You tear of pieces of the bread and scoop up the different dishes with it. You get a basketfull of injera as well. This was plenty of food for the two of us. Our server was super nice. I believe it's the husband who serves and the wife who cooks. Now that I know they serve such good food, I'll definitely be back!

Almaz Cafe

140 S 20th St

Philadelphia, PA 19103

(215) 557-0108