The Queen of Sheba

For Valentine's Day Tony surprised me with a Bed and Breakfast in New Albany and took me to dinner at the Queen of Sheba in Louisville. (I have a wonderful husband.) It was fun getting to have a "traditional" dinner in a traditional setting. We sat in a secluded part of the restaurant around a huge basket with a cone shape bottom for a table. It smelled delicious but when we opened the menu we had no idea what we were going to order or what we were about to eat.

On the drive to the restaurant Tony could only talk about one thing. How one thing he wanted out of the evening was to be able speak to someone from Ethiopia at the restaurant. I know you don't normally walk into a chinese restaurant and ask to speak to someone from China but it's true that mostly chinese people work there. I hadn't thought the same about the Ethiopian restaurant. However, as soon as we walked in the door Tony was on a mission. Once we were seated and the waitress came for our drink order he started, "Are you from Ethiopia." Now my husband will admit that he is the king of awkward and I've just learned to love and accept it, but at the moment I was a little more than slightly embarrassed. Now yes, our waitress did look as though she was from another country and did have an accent but from looking at her I could tell she was NOT from Ethiopia. Her response to Tony's question was, "Do I look like I'm from Ethiopia?" Then my face turned another shade of red from the previous one. I don't remember what he said to reply but she went on to explain that she was from Nepal. Yep, just a little bit different from Ethiopia. Tony didn't mind the awkwardness one bit and just went on to ask if we could speak to someone from Ethiopia, even the owner if we could. She looked at us like we were crazy and said yes she would bring the owner out when she could. After our almost 2 hour dinner we knew the owner wasn't coming. Needless to say Tony was a little disappointed but I was just happy to have eaten some good food with my husband and to not be embarrassed anymore for the night.

The food was delicious but not something I would crave all the time. A couple things I thoroughly enjoyed about it was the organic freshness of the food. I completely stuffed myself while there but didn't feel sick or gross when leaving. It's hard to actually leave a restaurant feeling healthier than when you walked in. The second thing I liked was the spongy bread we used to pick up our food with. It didn't have much flavor but was a fun way of eating and just added a little something special to the meal.

I would love to go back to that restaurant again and bring some more family and friends for the experience. As for speaking with an Ethiopian I know that our time will come and is coming very very soon!