Rahel Ethiopian Vegan Cuisine is a vegan paradise amidst the other paradisaical things down in Fairfax’s ‘Little Ethiopia’ district. Rahel is owned by the same woman who runs Messob restaurant next door, the awesome catch is that Rahel’s is all vegan.

The sign outside Rahel’s is a welcome site for sore eyes (I welcomed it and my eyes weren’t even sore). I’m imagining that to some of my readers out in cities where vegan (not to mention vegetarian or even ethnic) restaurants are hard to come by, a sign like this must look rather surreal.

For those of you who’ve never had Ethiopian food before, everyone eats with their hands off of one central plate. The different salads and stews called ‘Wots’ are scooped up with Injera, a soft bread made from an Ethiopian grain called teff.

Before the food was served our waitress came by to wash our hands. Nobody likes a dirty double-dipper!

First we were served these delicious appetizers known as ’sambussa’. They tasted a lot like Indian samosas but with African spices, and the filling was primarily lentils. Very tasty, hot and spicy.

I also tried a drink they call the ‘3D’ which involves a combination of sunflower seeds, flax seeds, barley and agave nectar. It was great, thick like a malted milkshake and hearty like a cereal. It would make a most amazing breakfast drink… I’m going to try to recreate it and see what I come up with.

We ordered the menu’s special for five people, the ‘Vegan Feast’, which consisted of: Cabbage stew, whole lentil stew, split lentil stew, YeAtkilt stew (steamed vegetables of carrots and potatoes seasoned with assorted spices), split pea stew, strings beans with carrots, zucchini stew, greens, chopped tomatoes with onion and jalapeño, and sunflower mixed with Injera.

We attacked this thing like a pack of ravenous wolves. Everything was so good, and the attentive staff made sure that our baskets of fresh Injera bread were being refilled one after another as soon as we would start to run low. We really laid into this, every single item was so tasty. The sheer size of this plate was somewhat intimidating, so I think all five of us figured we needed to go in for the kill and take no prisoners… it was either this plate or us. In the end, the plate won. Even after stuffing ourselves to capacity (more than one of us let out a button or two) there was still enough food left over to feed a few more hungry people. We were all quite satisfied by this fantastic meal, even the non-vegetarians amongst us. I love Ethiopian food and have had plenty of it. This was by far the best I’ve ever had, vegetarian or otherwise. They’ve also got a number of vegan cakes for dessert, but I was way too stuffed to even consider going for it. Next time!

p.s… check their website before you go. As of this writing, there’s a coupon to print out for 15% off.

... If you liked this article, please give it a Stumble!

1. Cold weather food at Real Food Daily.
2. Vegan Jamaican Caribbean Food
3. Not quite the vegan piggy…
4. Vegan comfort food
5. Vegetarian Greek food in the Valley