Cafes & Carryouts
You may never have set foot in this unprepossessing carryout, but if you’ve had Ethiopian food in DC, you’ve probably eaten here by proxy. The two-table grocery makes most of the injera—the spongy sourdough that constitutes serving platter, utensil, and breadstuff at a communal meal in an Ethiopian restaurant.
Zenebech Injera boasts some of the best cooking in the six-block stretch of U Street known as Little Ethiopia. The beef tartare called kitfo ($8.50) is a mound of pungently spiced meat. An intensely rich stew of cabbage, potatoes, and carrots ($7.50) hardly deserves the label “side dish.” Kik alicha ($8), a yellow-lentil stew, is as creamy and soothing as a bowl of cheesy grits. On the way out, pick up one of the kitchen’s breads—baked, as is the custom, in swaddlings of banana leaf.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
