Awash Ethiopian Restaurant, Amsterdam Ave. between 106th and 107th

When I ate the soury, spicy leftovers from Awash, an Ethiopian restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue, I thought of Abraham Verghese's characters in Cutting for Stone and how they longed for the taste of Ethiopia.  Verghese's narrator, after he's moved to America, finds himself entering an Ethiopian restaurant in Boston.  "The smell of fermenting honey elicited a Pavlovian response from [his] taste buds."  He eats as  if he had lived through a famine.   An Ethiopian restaurant in New York conjures up for the narrator "the sour taste of injera and a fiery wot" and his mouth begins watering.

I ate at Awash several months ago with my sister.  On the walls, painted in shades of lemon and lime, pictures of women and pastoral scenes hang.  The food we ordered was served on a big round tray, set in the middle of the table.  The yebeg wat, a lamb stew seasoned with berbere sauce contained tender chunks of meat in a rather thick brown soury-spicy sauce.  The gomen, collard greens, were cooked with onions and a hint of cardamon.  The yemesir kik wat, split red lentils cooked in berbere sauce were perfectly al dente -- a bit of a crunch as you chewed into the soft center.  All was served on a wonderful, spongy bread.  There is no silverware.  You pull a piece of the plentiful bread and scoop the sour-hot stew from the platter.  I imagine this is a taste you acquire.  But it is fun to tear off the bread, scoop up the food, and talk.