vacation eats

hubby and i like to eat on vacation.  we like to find out of the way, different ethnic restaurants that we don't have in our neck of the woods.  in researching eats in lancaster, we knew we wanted indian.  we thought about thai, but then i wondered if their was an ethiopian restaurant - i always wanted to try it.  lucky us, there was!


for lunch on thursday we ate at shady maple.  they serve a lot of pennsylvania dutch fare, which we're pretty accustomed to eating.  once you swim through the throngs of elderly pirannas other diners, your plate fills pretty quickly.  i really wanted pot pie (slippery style) but couldn't find it, and would have killed for a second portion of stuffing (which was just like grandma's) and baked corn.  unfortunately i'm not a cow with two stomachs, and i don't do the binge/purge, so i only got one plateful of food before i was stuffed.  no seconds for me!

shady maple has stations where they have a rotating selection of dishes made while you wait. you can get seafood, beef, whatever the special is that day.  they had walnut chicken, which i love, but when i got my portion it was basically 2 mcdonalds chicken nuggets (!!!) with a dribble of sauce, none on my rice.  i should have bagged the walnut chicken and got more filling and baked corn!


for supper thursday evening we ate at taj mahal.  a small restaurant behind a strip mall, it boasted a pretty generous menu.

these are the little fried "bits" they served as an appetizer, and we had hot towels to clean our hands - they smelled like roses:




we had samosas for an appetizer.  hubby had saag with crab and i had shammi korma with chicken:



hubby had stuffed naan:



i had roti:



hubby had rasmalai (cheese patties in cream sauce) and i had gajar ka halwa (grated carrots cooked with milk, dried nuts and cardamom) for dessert:



hubby washed his meal down with an indian beer, and i pounded down a pitcher of water.

our meal was delish.  i'd go back in a heartbeat.  i love indian food.

as we were leaving we found this:



an indian spinning wheel!




on friday we went to addisu to try ethiopian food.  i'd heard that you eat with your hands and thought that would be fun.

this restaurant really is a hole in a wall - situated in the side of a strip mall.  it's tiny, with maybe half a dozen tables.  it shares the space with an ethiopian grocery, which consisted of a couple metal shelves holding bags of flour, containers of lentils and spices, and coffee makers.

hubby and i ordered afaagn, a ground beef dish that is a speciality in ethiopian cooking.  hubby ordered his spicy;  mine not so much.  i think they forgot, becos mine was as spicy as hubby's.  it was like eating spicy sloppy joe - very tasty:

the meat is eaten with teff injera, a type of bread sort of like a spongy tortilla.  you tear a bit of the bread and use it to scoop up the food.  it took a bit of work and i wound up using my bread like a pincher.

they served a small portion of lentils with our meal, which i really liked.  while i liked the beef dish, it was too spicy for me and in hindsight, i wished i ordered the combo meal which had half a dozen mini portions of their vegetarian dishes, made with lentils, split peas and other veggies.  oh well - it's a good incentive to go back and try it again!

the menu is pretty small;  no appetizers, no dessert, but they offer coffee.  i don't like coffee, and we were pretty full, so hubby didn't get to try any either.  apparently they serve excellent coffee, which made me wish i liked coffee a little bit.

hubby wanted to go to the lancaster brewing company and pick up a six pack of one of their microbrews.  hubby didn't know which beer to pick, and they don't have free taste testing, so he ordered the sampler to figure out which beer he liked best.



these were the beers on tap (and then some):



i am not a beer person (i can't get over the bitter taste, just the same that i can't drink coffee - i think i'm a supertaster in that respect) but i did taste the strawberry wheat and the milk stout.  if i was forced to drink something, i'd pick the strawberry wheat becos it tasted sweet.  the milk stout made me want to vomit as soon as i swallowed (and i kept that feeling for the next hour until we ate lunch - not fun!)

hubby picked county cream ale, which wasn't offered in a six pack, but he got some in a growler.  it was a nice souvenir to take home, if a bit pricey!


hubby and i had great nosh on our trip.  it's one thing we look forward to when we go away on vacation!  it's fun to discover new foods and restaurants.