Tacos in Kazanchis
The owner of this small restaurant has a more ecclectic menu, with creative menu items:
"Live it up with Cobuqa's Finest Burgers":
Frankfurt take-off burgerAmsterdam-high cheese burgerSingapore-bay chicken burgerIstanbul-joy lamb burgerBlue Nile fish burger
All served with...French fries!
There are also sandwiches (from Seoul and Bombay) and a Sweet Dreams English Cake for dessert.
But the largest selection on the menu is from Mexico:
He told me he lived in Germany (I thought he was German when I asked the waitresses who the owner was, and came back and found that he is very much Ethiopian).
I think (I'm pretty sure) he is catering to the UN-ECA (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa) crowd. The organization is just a walking distance away.
It is a charming place, with an upstairs and downstairs, with a patio, and a satellite dish for the tv upstairs. And "WiFi will be coming soon."
And the curtains are the Ethiopian traditional embroidered cloth, used normally as a shawl. (Which makes up for the surprising absence of a variation on an Ethiopian dish!)
Like many small cafes and restaurants in Addis, the owner has decorated the walls with paintings by local artists. I asked if we can buy any, and he said to contact them directly. I was pressed for time, but next time, I will find the name and contact for these artists, and post them.
I asked what "cobuqa" - the name of his restaurant - means. He told me it was a mesh of three versions of coffee: COffee-BUna-Qahwa (buna from the Amharic for coffee, and qahwa for the Arabic. Do you have any connection to the Arab lands? I asked. He said, well, qa also comes from the Swahili kahawa. Oh, Africa! I replied, liking that much better).
[All Photos By: KPA]
I'll be combing back for the tacos!