The new Blue Nile

[Yoni]

About three years ago there was a pretty decent Ethiopian place at, like, 45th and Baltimore called Blue Nile. A couple months after it opened, it went from decent to pretty damn crappy. I don't know why. According to someone who knew someone who worked there (sure...), management decided to change cooks or recipes or some such thing. One way or the other, I didn't go there again and in a few months the place closed down.

A couple years later, everyone is raving about another Ethiopian restaurant called Blue Nile, this time at 51st and... Locust? Spruce? Baltimore? I don't know. Anyway, this place is supposed to be incredible, tasty, cheap, wonderful, and a million other things. From the one review I read, the Baby Jesus could have been born in their kitchen and no one would have been surprised, that's how good this restaurant was supposed to have been.

Here's the thing: They moved to 45th and Baltimore into, you guessed it, the shell of the old Blue Nile restaurant, which hadn't been filled in those two or two and a half years, however long it's been. The two restaurants are not related except for the fact that they're both Ethiopian and they have the same bloody name! Something which, at least in my mind, means they're closely related, no matter what other people are saying. That's like, I don't know, having two friends with identical names and backgrounds. Or, better yet, it's like dating two people in a row with the same name but different spellings. "No, that's Joi with an I, not Joy with a Y. Joy with a Y was my last girlfriend." It's kind of weird, right?

So how do the people at the new Blue Nile explain it? I went in there last week with a friend - not anyone named Joy or Joi, don't give me that look - and after a lovely dinner I asked the waitress what was up. According to her, and I paraphrase, "Oh, we have nothing to do with the old restaurant. We just have the same name. We don't know who it is that ran it, but there is no connection between the two restaurants." I was going to ask why the new people decided not to change the name, but I figured that it's a case of whatever works.

As far as the food goes, it was great. I had the raw beef kitfo and my date had lamb stew. I had never had raw beef Ethiopian style, but I figured that a) There's nothing more amusing to see on a server's face than their reaction to a white dude ordering raw meat b) It'd be an excellent way to see just how good this place really was c) I thought I remembered something about how tasty the kitfo was from the review I read of the 51st St. Blue Nile.

I spent the 25 minutes or so between the time we ordered and when our food was brought out hoping and praying that my memory was correct and the review didn't say something like, "Pretty good stuff, just stay away from the kitfo, that shit's dangerous and will definitely kill you in the most horrendous way possible." Thankfully, at least this time, my memory didn't let me down. The kitfo was tender, wonderfully seasoned, and just plain interesting. It came with a very plain tasting Ethiopian cheese which had the consistency of a slightly chewy cottage cheese. It was, like I said, interesting. It was also tasty.

Blue Nile is the third restaurant here in Philly where I've ordered a raw beef dish. The other two are Xe Lua/Viet Thai in China Town, where the appetizer of thinly sliced raw beef with lime juice, dried fried onions, and peanuts is extraordinary, and the Korean joint Han Wool in West Philly where I got raw beef Bibimbop, which is a noodle and rice dish. Both times - or each time, if you count the fact that I've gone back to Xe Lua on three or four occasions since - the waiter or waitress gave me that, "Do you know what you're ordering, white boy?" look and said, "You do know that you're ordering raw beef, right (white boy)?" Blue Nile was no exception, which I appreciated.

Truth be told, my foray into raw beef is really just the extension of my overall beef-eating habits. In the past six years or so there's been a steady decline in cooking time from medium-well to medium-rare to rare. And it's not like I eat beef - or meat in general - more often than once every couple weeks or so. It's just that when I went back to eating meat after two or three years as a vegetarian I decided that I wouldn't hide the flesh in another package, be it something like the deep-fried travesty of chicken fingers or just by cooking the shit out of something until it barely resembled the animal muscle it started out as. Meat is animal, and if I'm going to eat it, I'm going to not pretend it's anything but.

So, where was I? Oh yeah. Raw beef kitfo. It also came in a cooked variety, which I assume is just as tasty, if not as interesting or exciting. Sorry guys, but it's really just not the same if you don't take your life in your hands by eating things that can potentially make you sick and kill you! I kid. Eat what you want. At Blue Nile, like at all other Ethiopian/Eritrean places, you have lots of vegetarian options too! I don't remember what they were, but if they were anything like the sides we got with our food - spicy lentils, delicious collard greens, some sort of bean stew that was quite decent - I'm sure they're pretty good.

So to sum it up: Raw beef good! Lamb good! Vegetables good! Naming your restaurant after another, not-as-good place that inhabited the same space as you, very confusing! All in all, though, the quality of the food definitely broke down the defenses I had built up to the previous Blue Nile, and when it comes down to it, that's what counts.

[Andrew]

If you surf around, you'll find that there are lots of Ethiopian Restaurants with Blue Nile in the title. Anyway, it's great to see the new Blue Nile Falls is still putting out good food in its new location!