ADULIS

Certainly one of the best things about London is that you can easily find any kind of food. 

I decided on Saturday night to try a restaurant in my new local area. There is not many proper restaurants is the area compared to Smithfield-Clerkenwell. In Oval it is mainly chicken fast food shops and kebabs. If you want more choice of course you can always go down to Brixton or Clapham, but for a Halloween hangover reason we wanted to stay local. 

One of the proper restaurants is Adulis who have served Eritrean cuisine since 1996. 
It sounded like the perfect option for my friends and I, as two of them were vegetarian and Eritrean is veggie friendly.

I didn't think we really needed to book for a Saturday night in Oval, but we did in case.

We arrived to Adulis and we were all very surprised to find the place packed. 

We ordered some drinks and we shared a starter while we were waiting for the main to arrive. All of us noticed the nice little smell of roasted coffee in the restaurant, it was really pleasant. 

We had humous to start, it was served with pitta bread. It was a really nice and smooth humous. At that time of the meal, we didn't know we did a mistake by ordering a starter and eating bread. 

 Chickpeas and sesame paste served with pita bread

My two vegetarian friends already tried Eritrean food in Africa, for my other friend and I, it was a new experience. We shared the mini kirchat for two people, and our veggie friends shared the Nai tsom for two people. 

The food arrived on two massive platters and were served with Injera underneath and on the side too. Injera  (also called Tatia) is leavened pancake made with sourdough of taff flour. 

 Mini kirchat, a selection of four different vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes

I liked the fact that you didn't have a knife or fork in Adulis, you had to eat with your hand and your piece of pancake. There was such a lot of food on this platter, I only regret the waiter didn't tell us what was each dish on the platter. 

We had a mix of vegetarian and non vegetarian dishes. We had beef, lamb and chicken on the platter, every meat were cooked with the perfect balance of spice in a different way. Each dish was very good but our favourite was the lamb served in the middle. All the vegetarian option were also very good and tasty. The best one was the shimbra assa: chickpeas cooked in spices, garlic, ginger, cayenne pepper and olive oil. 

Nai tsom special vegetarian - selection of vegetarian dishes selected by head chef

Overall the meal was a delight, vegetarian dishes were as good as meat dishes. I would probably take the vegetarian next time as it is more healthy. We were all very full and couldn't finish the platter, next time we won't order any starter as the injera with all different meat and vegetables was enough, especially if you had a brunch and a snack before on the same day. 

We didn't go for the coffee ceremony at the end as we were too tired, but it is definitely on our future plan for our next visit, the roasted coffee smell was very attractive and tempting.

7/10. 

Adulis

44-46 Brixton Road

London SW9 6BT