Happy Birthday to Laura

Friday, August 1st was Laura's 28th birthday. To celebrate her friends brought her out to lunch while Grandma watched Colby. When I got home from work, Grandma, Auntie Carrie and Jen, and Laura were all hanging out with the little lady. Laura had told me that she wanted to have Ethiopian for her birthday dinner. So I looked online and found a place in Baltimore called Dukem. The reviews on the food were great, all though the service was said to be terrible. I have come to expect that with many ethnic restaurants but it is always worth it for the delicious food. We actually love Ethiopian food. My favorite part is that it comes out on this spongy pancake like bread called injera. Then you get more injera to eat with. No utensils necessary, actually you get to eat your utensils and plate. 

We arrived at the restaurant and the decor was really nice. Dark wood, a full bar and small tables downstairs. Sounded like there was a party in the upstairs dining room. We sat down and the waitress asked us right away if we wanted a drink. We asked about the ethiopian beers because I love beers. They had two available; Harar and Meta. 

Laura got the Harar, which I had tried before at an Ethopian restaurant in Boston, and I got Meta. They were both pretty good but I won't go into that here, I want to start a beer blog soon. 

The food is what we came to talk about and man was it good. The waitress recommended a combo plate that we could share that would give us a good idea of a lot of the foods that they had to offer.

DUKEM COMBO (6) Reg. tibs beef, lamb wot, doro wot, minchet Abesh, 5Veg.and home made cottages cheese........$30.50

The meat stuff was spicy and delicious and there was a spicy chickpea thing that was amazing. Almost everything had chunks of jalapenos in it. We like it spicy, so this wasn't a bad thing. I would recommend the restaurant to anyone in the area. We thought the service was great, there were no complaints here.

After dinner we walked 2 blocks to The Brewers Art for an after dinner drink. Here they have about 5 beers they brew on site and a host of beers in a bottle. I had the Okocim Stout, which was a little rich for my tastes but good. 

After the beer we started getting tired. We are two young parents after all and it was time to get home to the babysitter. It was nice to have a dinner out like we used to. We are so lucky to be close to family that is more than willing to help us out so we can have a normal birthday dinner out together. The only difference is we were home by 9:30 and ready for bed. In the end we had a wonderful dinner and a great birthday celebration.