Forks.

Metal. Cold. Soulless.

And dare I say, a tad bit violent.

While they are pretty nice for eating things such as moms spaghetti, they tend to make my knees weak, palms sweaty and arm heavy when I think about how sad it is that I can’t eat it when I’m done with it. So what’s a man to do?

Go to Elsa’s in downtown Overland Park and use the best utensil ever. It’s something called “bread” and supposedly all the cool kids are doing it these days.

Anyways, welcome to Ethiopian food.

It all started after I binge-watched Anthony Bourdains Parts Unknown to give myself a food contact high due to my wife demanding that we eat clean so we look good in bathing suits. He did an episode in Ethiopia and we pretty much both just looked at each other and nonverbally said, “Fuck yes.”

So Katie did some research and found an Ethiopian placed close to us called Elsa’s. It’s located right in downtown OP.

We sit down and get to business. We order a beer and some honey wine. What’s honey wine? It’s mead. Apparently Ethiopians are as into Viking culture as I am and, much like Arrow Odd, I’m up for an adventure. It’s served in a potion glass which is perfect for when your mana is running low and your Druids Innervate is on cooldown.

Katie:

You need to stop talking.

Sorry.

It was pretty good. Very sweet, obviously. Too sweet for me.

We decided to start with the Sambosas which is like an African samosas. They were filled with lentils and you dipped them into this amazing red paste that I have no idea what it was. Maybe berbere? I don’t know. But it was great.

So what did we order for our main course? We decided to go with the Meat Platter. It comes with three meat options and two vegetarian options. And it looks like this.

The meat on there was:

Doro Tibs (chicken in a onion/tomato sauce)

Key Wat (Spicy beef)

Alicia Wat (Prime beef)

The veggies were a collard green dish which was awesome and a fresh cheese.

The owner was awesome. He saw us struggling a bit to properly use the bread and instructed us on the proper way to use it. You tear off a small piece of the bread, place it flat on the food you want, pinch, don’t scoop, and bring it up straight to your mouth. The bread was really good too. It had a sort of spongey feel to it and was a really fun way of eating.

How about the bathrooms?

Bright. Very bright.

How would we rate it?

Ryan:

Taste – 8/10

Value – 8/10

Owner – 10/10

Bathroom – Pink Power Ranger

Katie:

Taste: 8/10

Value – 8/10

Decor – They had a wall of boxed wine, so it was perfect.

We definitely recommend you try this place. We’ll be back.

Elsa’s Ethiopian

8016 Santa Fe Dr, Overland Park, KS 66204