How’s this for a restaurant… Red Sea Restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush London does Yemeni, Ethiopian and Eritrean food! Now, that’s a wonderful concoction and you know you’ll find something that will tickle your fancy. To be honest I was amazed to find such distinctively different cuisines under one roof. Surely, the quality of one will be compromised? Or both? There was a combination of excitement and apprehension going into this one. We’ll break this review up into the two main cuisines on offer here, what they are and what we tried. The Ethiopian / Eritrean one and the Yemeni one.
Ethiopian / Eritrean food
Ethiopian or Eritrean cuisine is one of the most unique, distinctive and interesting foods in the world. And it is certainly one of the cuisines you have to try in London. Thankfully, there are many Ethiopian restaurants scattered around the city. What sets Red Sea Restaurant apart from the rest is that they do not serve alcohol. So, right off the bat, that’s a big W in our eyes. What is Ethiopian or Eritrean food? Two things: injera and wat. Injera is a fermented teff flour large flatbread, which amazingly is used as an eating utensil: a plate for the stews to sit on and a spoon to use to lift the stews up. And what is wat? (See what I did there?). Wat is the name for the stews that sit on the injera and there are chicken, meat and vegetable stews. The variety is actually very impressive. So, my recommendation will definitely to go for a platter to share (see picture), so you can try a few of the stews.
So, that’s exactly what we got. A platter to share. On their menu it’s the Red Sea special dish (small) and it comes with 7 of the Abyssinian dishes. And they were: Lega Tibbs (boneless meat chunks sautéed in rosemary onions and green pepper), Awaze Tibbs (fried meat chunks is red chilli sauce), Zigni (slow cooked meat cube stew – considered the national dish of Eritrea), Dero Wat (hot spicy chicken stew – considered the national dish of Ethiopia and this is probably the most famous dish of the cuisine), and then a variety of vegetarian dishes including chicken peas, lentils and spinach. How was everything? We’ve tried this cuisine before and I’ve always found it very interesting and love certain parts of it and not so much other parts. I love some of the stews and dishes e.g. the dero wat is top tier chicken curry basically. But I’m not the biggest injera fan. I find it too vinegary in taste and would prefer something more subtle and bland like rice or roti to go with the flavourful curries. Nonetheless, we’ve tried 3 Ethiopian restaurants in London now and the food here is certainly as good as the others. So, I’d definitely hit them up.
Yemeni food
If you’ve been following me on here or on my social media pages, you should know by now that my love for this cuisine is like none other. Some of my favourite dishes is from the Yemeni cuisine. This love story started back in Saudi Arabia. I lived there for a bit and this cuisine is literally what I lived off from breakfast to dinner. Hands down my favourite dish is the Madhbi, which is chargrilled chicken on Mandi flavoured rice. So, this is what we ended up getting from here.
First of all, the presentation looked a bit different to the authentic look. It looked cleaner, more polished and if anything it felt like when someone tries a little too hard that the original charm is lost. So, I had my doubts from the offset. Let’s talk about the taste though. The rice, oh the rice!! It was super flavourful and very very authentic tasting. We took one bite and just looked at one another with the look of “yeah this is the one”. My wife is a huge fan of the rice of this dish and she gave it the full approval. My favourite part of the dish is the chicken and even though the chicken here was tasty, it just wasn’t that super chargrilled chicken (you know when the chicken is flat and there are black (almost burnt) parts on it giving it that extra flavour), which I love. The red tomato and chilli salsa that comes with this dish, is what brings everything together so having it essential and usually places don’t get this wrong, and this place was no different. Overall, a great dish overall and we were pleasantly surprised for sure.
Getting there:
Parking: Bloemfontein Road – free parking evenings and weekends.
Nearest Mosque: Masjid Daar us Sunnah
Nearest station: Shepherd’s Bush
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