Safari Habesha is an absolutely wonderful East African vegetarian restaurant with a number of amazing African vegan and vegetarian dishes. The staff are charming and the décor is understated but elegant, and all in all the whole dining experience is well worth a visit.

The food is best if you order a large selection of dishes and share them, as they are all worth dipping into and they all offer some wonderful contrasting and complementing tastes. Start with the spicy stew marinated Injera served with onion and garlic and a couple of orders of bread baked in butter and pepper and served up with yoghurt. For something a little different to start, try the barley flour porridge, which also comes with yoghurt and pepper. If that seems like an odd combination, it is – but somehow it works.

From the main dishes on offer I would thoroughly recommend the spicy crushed fava beans which are served with a topping of falafel and feta cheese and come sautéed in olive oil or sesame oil. Eaten with some of the bread this is an exquisite dish. Also worth trying are the Ye Abasha Salad and the egg with pepper, onions, tomatoes as well as the Hedmona potatoes (baby potatoes boiled and sautéed with olive oil and herbs).

Best of all however is the humus, which is made to their own recipe and served with bread and tastes completely different (and a lot better) than the bland humus you get at your local supermarket. Order a portion of humus and the Sambosa fried patties (stuffed with green peas and potatoes and served on lettuce) and you will be in veggie foodie heaven.

One great option is to order a selection of all the vegetarian dishes on offer, which includes the chana dal, the fosolia, as well as a number of spinach, cabaage and lentil dishes, and only costs £5.

You’re only problem with Safari habesha will be ordering too much and then finding you have no room left to eat it all. Delicious.

Alex is a financial blogger and writer and a vegetarian. He loves writing about vegetarian food and green issues although he spends most of his time writing about business and finance from taxes to mortgages to payday loans .

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