The Blue Nile
Last night, my mom (graciously) volunteered to come out and watch Bjorn for an evening so Meghan and I could go out for an evening. We took her up on the offer. When presented with a free evening to go out on a date, we usually have a difficult time deciding what restaurant to try. There are so many incredible non-american restaurants in the area! The Blue Nile restaurant in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis had been recommended to us several times, but we had never had a chance to check it out until last night. One word: Amazing.
The Blue Nile serves up Ethiopian fare, which neither Meghan nor myself had ever tried before. Everything is served family-style on a huge piece of Injera (also called Biddeena), which is used to scoop up your main entree[1]. As is usually our custom when visiting a restaurant for the first time, we got a sampler platter so that we could taste a good variety of the restaurant’s offerrings. Ethiopian food typically takes on the form of a thick stew – quite spicy and incredibly full of flavor. The sampler platter we ordered had lamb, beef, chicken, cabbage, lentils (three different kinds), and chickpeas (three different kinds as well). The food was incredible, and both of us were pleasantly surprised by how much we were enjoying ourselves. As a bonus, they had (among other things) several Belgian Ales on tap – out of the three available, I chose to partake of the venerable Delirium Tremens. :-) Gotta love that name. More and more lately, I’ve been getting into Belgians, and I appreciated the opportunity to try out DT, as I’d heard it recommended several times.
So anyway, I’d highly recommend the Blue Nile – we’ll certainly be going back again soon.
[1] I think more restaurants should do the family-style thing. There is something unifying about having everyone at the table eat off of the same large platter.
Haven’t been there, but have been to Queen of Sheba (same type of food, sounds like the same experience, but in St. Paul). Went with a bunch of friends and did a similar thing with the sampler stuff. They waitress found it sorta funny that we ate “just like a family”. May have to try out this one too. Just curious, does the smell of the food not wash off your hands easily there too?
Heh – yah, the smell stays with you, no doubt.
Hmm… glad you enjoyed it – my experience was otherwise. I’m usually extremely epicurious – I ate some really bizarre things in India – but the Blue Nile got the best of me.
I think my biggest problem was the Injera. My memory of it was that it had an overpowering smell (and worse, taste) of curdled milk. The stuff sitting on it was good – but I was so sick of the Injera by the end of dinner that I couldn’t finish.
So – not to bash your good experience – I’m glad you enjoyed it. I was left with the need to go to Bakers Square afterwards to wash it down with a piece of really bland pie.
Oh – and yes, DT is good stuff!
Hrm – that’s interesting…I wonder if they had a bad batch of Injera…I’m usually very sensitive to the “bad milk” smell, and there was none of it in our experience.