East Bay Ethiopian was Tonight's sandwiches 2032

Dave Smith

That's exactly the kind of PC criticism i am talking about. I was not condemning all Ethiopian restaurants, just the local ones mentioned in the original post.

Im talking about Berkeley California, the veritable home of Political Correctness.

Sounds Pavlovian to me.

I'm not sure i understand your last sentence. You don't like it cause it was not to your taste? and you wont return for that reason? Or are you suggesting the over all quality of the place is less than desirable, and if it is popular, why would it be so beyond any ethnic clientele?

Obviously there are what i would consider very bad restaurants that are their popularity has more to do with ignorance than anything else.

There used to be a little hole in the wall place in San Diego that sold white bread and velveta cheese sandwiches and Campbell's soup and kraft macaroni & cheese & etc. of that ilk sort of place that was very popular, with a very, specific segment of the population. Southern, rural, and generally of a lower economic strata that was used to eating the kind of food offered.

There are food stores in Oakland Ca. that sell wilted veggies and old breads and other generally less than quality ingredients and products but are very popular with a specific clbutt of people that are accustomed to eating such things.

I remember once a number of years ago when there was a major supermarket strike and places like safeway and lucky were closed. I used then to shop at an up scale independent market called Andronicos. I was there when a women came in with a pbuttel of kids and was visibly stunned by the profusion of quality fruits and veggies she saw immediately upon entering the store. And commented to those people with her that she would not shop any where else again.

There was a local Taquiria (sp?) that got such a glowing write up that i went there and the food was awful, but again in a very popular area where a lot of young collage kids hang out. Near by is a place that makes really great pizza but i wont patronize them cause its always packed with a line outside waiting to get into a noisy crowded room, with blaring rock music and full of drunken frat brats. But they make a great deep dish pizza.Perhaps there are better east bay restaurants than the ones mentioned in this thread, or in other cities out side of the east bay.

I would agree that any culture probly has great good food. But my experiences with Ethiopian restaurants in the east bay have not been good ones. Went to a Japanese Sushi place in SF a few weeks ago that literally stank and the food was awful also. If it weren't for a die hard PC type i was with i would have turned around and walked out. As it was we went across the street for desert to a different Sushi place and even the PC type i was with admitted it was a better place than the one we originally ate in (nibbled cautiously in my case).

I might also add that the places in Berkeley are mostly patronized by young naive collage kids and the Blue Nile especially seemed, the few times i was there, to be very smug & condescending in their atbreastude to people unfamiliar with their cuisine. I judge a restaurant on more than just the food served.

On the other hand there is a Tibetan place that started out very poorly and became very good. Even considering the lack of traditional ingredients the cook had to work with.

There's an area in Berkeley that has a dozen or more Indian restaurants in a small area and some of them are obviously better than others, but i wont patronize any of them because of the way they price the food. The same dish can vary greatly in price from one restaurant to the next, and according to the time of day and IMO all are over priced because they are popular, i can remember 15 - 20 years ago when the trend started they were inexpensive and very good, but the more popular they became the more the quality declined and the price went up. --- JL