Food

So there's a lot of cafes all over the country and all of them claim to have a variety of pastries and cakes. This is completely 100% untrue. There is no such thing as pastry or cake in Ethiopia. They have things that look like donuts, but have no glaze or sugar. Their cakes are bland and dry containing just enough sugar to remind you what a cake is supposed to taste like. This is in fact common of most sweets you can get at an Ethiopian cafe, they look like they should, but they are missing several key ingredients that make them taste like they should. They also claim to have croissants, but they're really croissant shaped lumps of heavy dough that have a lot more in common with bread than their French namesake.

There is redemption for Ethiopian cafes though in the form of juice, which I should clarify is not what you would call juice. You would call Ethiopian juice a blended drink similiar to a smoothie, but only containing fruit. They are delicious and easily the best thing about Ethiopian dining. You can get them in the flavours of pineapple, advocado, papaya, mango, and guava, but the best way to get them is spris, which is apparently the Ethiopian word for "all different types of fruit layered deliciously together". I try and have one as often as possible, in fact I think I'll go have one now.