When my wife Steph and I lived in San Francisco 25+ years ago, my pal Joey and his wife Shawna took us to the Blue Nile restaurant in Berkeley, for our first taste of Ethiopian food. Back then Ethiopia was synonymous with famine, so the joke was that our plates would be empty, but the jokes faded fast.

It’s a fun and delicious cuisine, built around stews and soft food, served on a shared plate and accompanied by piles of a light, bubbly flat bread called injera. There’s no silverware. You rip off bits of the injera, and use those bits to pick up bites of the stews and soft food. Your fingers will smell delicious for the rest of the day.

After that meal, Steph & I often ate in Ethiopian restaurants everywhere we lived, but it was always kinda pricey. Being a cheapskate, I haven’t had Ethiopian food since Stephanie’s death in 2018, but I had a hankering, and a local place called Ras Dashen has surprisingly low prices listed on their website.

So on Wednesday, I took the bus, the train, and another bus, and arrived at Cherry Street and MLK for lunch at Ras Dashen — and the restaurant was closed. Their website says they’re open from 11AM-10PM every day but Mondays, but it was 11:15, and the sign on the door said they’d open at 3PM.

That’s frustrating, with a few flamboyant obscenities, but the neighborhood is basically Little Ethiopia. There are two other Ethiopian restaurants that I knew of, just at that one intersection — plus a third I hadn’t known existed.

Almost across the street from Ras Dashen is Agelgil, but the door was locked and the sign said they’re closed on Wednesdays.

Across MLK, there’s Zagol, but they’re also closed on Wednesdays. Maybe Wednesday is the weekend in Ethiopia.

It was looking like this would not be my Wednesday for an Ethiopian lunch, but a small sign called to me from across the street. Next to an auto repair shop, in a small, green building that was once a house, there’s Cafe Selam, a fourth Ethiopian restaurant almost at the intersection of Cherry Street and MLK.

It’s a tiny place, with eight tables and perhaps 25 seats. When I walked in there were five other customers, all black, which has to be a good sign, right? You want to eat Ethiopian at the place where Ethiopians eat!

I wasn’t sure whether you’re supposed to order at the register or sit at one of the tables. I’m still not sure. There seemed to be only one employee, and he was in the kitchen, out of sight. Still standing, I helped myself to a menu from a stack beside the cash register, and decided I wanted lamb tibs, which are available in your choice of mild or spicy.

A woman eating at one of the tables softly hollered into the back of the restaurant, “Customer!”

“It’s only me,” I said, and she nodded from behind her hajib.

A youngish black dude immediately emerged from the kitchen and tried to hand me a menu, but I already had one, which I put back on the stack. “I cheated,” I said, “and already looked at the menu.”

“Welcome to Cafe Salem,” he said through a smiling African accent. “Do you know what you want?”

I said, “Lamb tibs, please,” and he gestured for me to sit down, so I sat. He asked if I’d like water, and I nodded, and then he was gone.

The music was cool, lively jazz. A mid-size TV screen is mounted over the door, but thankfully it was muted, and showing video instead of TV — an endless Christmas scene, snow falling on a house, and no commercials. It’s January 14, but Cafe Salem still has the Christmas spirit.

The guy quickly returned with a plastic carafe of ice water. As the waiter/cook/cashier was leaving to return to his other duties, a white man walked into the cafe. He looked sorta grungy, and not in a rock’n’roll way. Homeless, I suspect.

“Can I use the restroom, please?” he said.

“Of course,” was the employee’s answer, and said kindly — and I simply can’t remember the last time I’ve seen that much non-monetarily-fueled courtesy at an American business. Maybe never?

Not many minutes later, my meal arrived, one plate of food and one plate of injera. It wasn’t as much food as I’d remembered from eating Ethiopian in the past, but at all my other Ethiopian meals, I’d been with my wife, and Ethiopian is served communally, the whole party sharing one pile of food. Today I was solo, as in all my life these days, so it was half as much as I’d sort of expected, but still plenty of food.

On one corner of the plate, a smallish and spicy salad; on another corner, a delicious pile of mashed or pulped corn; but on most of the plate, chunks of fried lamb, sautéed in a stir-fry with a light smattering of onions and a heavy dose of spices.

Ooh, the spices. At the first bite I flashed back to when I’d ordered, and my big mistake — I’d said only, “lamb tibs.” but forgotten to say, “mild, please.” If you don’t say mild, the default is apparently spicy. And whooooey, this was spicy enough to make my eyes water and my nose a spigot. I was glad for the water, and drank all of it.

The meal was really good, despite the spice-heat. There was a smattering of gristle among the tibs, but where are you gonna find fat-free lambs? The injera was perfect, and there was lots of it. Everything on the plate was yummy, and there was lots of it, too. The only thing lacking was that my wife wasn’t there.

Between the excellent meal and the employee’s kindness to that homeless guy, the other Ethiopian places at that intersection will never see me. Cafe Selam is now my place for Ethiopian in Seattle.

The tab was $23, plus tip, which is very reasonable for a meal that good, and that big. I’m writing this ten hours later, still completely satiated and belly-happy. And my fingers smell terrific.

Cafe Selam
2715 E Cherry Street, Seattle (Central District)
Food & drink: very good
Price: good
Service: good
Transit: #3, #8
Verdict: BIG YES.

1/15/2025

Cheap Seattle

itsdougholland.com 
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