It’s rare that a restaurant logo actually inspires me to step inside and order food.  But somehow Ghenet, a tiny Ethiopian restaurant on the corner of Douglass and 4th Avenue in Park Slope, won me over with its sign.  When I read the words, “Ghenet: Where angels eat,” I just had to know why.

Apparently ghenet means paradise.  (Where is that Ethiopian-English dictionary when I need it?)  Though it strikes me as a lofty statement to claim that angels eat only Ethiopian food, the ambience in this itty bitty joint seemed fitting for heavenly creatures.  With the lights turned down low and tall, intricately carved metal screens surrounding the tables, it felt like we were inside a secret chamber.

But enough about the decor.  If you’ve never experienced an Ethiopian meal, you need to know a few things before you try this place.  First, Ethiopian food is served communally.  That doesn’t mean you get a heaping dish of something and then little plates to scoop your portion onto.  What happens is the waiter delivers a giant platter covered with injera, a fluffy flatbread made from a grain called teff that has been slightly fermented.  Then each of the dishes your tablemates ordered are ladled onto the bread, with space in between each juicy concoction.  Then everyone digs in, using their fingers to tear off pieces of the injera and grab bites of each dish.  It’s great fun and the bonus is that the more people you are eating with, the more new flavors you get to try.  (Germaphobes, fear not.  At Ghenet they bring hot towels to your table to wash your hands before you eat.)

We tried three dishes: asa kitfo (cubed tuna seasoned with shallots, peppers and spices), engoudae wett (mushrooms cooked in a berbere sauce of red chili peppers, onions, garlic and other spices) and gored-gored (cubed beef in a clarified butter seasoned with hot peppers, garlic, ginger, salt and other spices).  As a freebie, they threw in a few scoops of slow cooked lentils.

By far our fave was the asa kitfo, whose complex flavors stood out in the crowd.  Still, all four dishes were tasty and the variety of meats, mushrooms and beans rounded out our order.  As always I overdid it on the injera (beware, that stuff expands in your stomach), but couldn’t bear to leave even a scrap of meat on the platter.

Typically I don’t like sweet drinks, but Ethiopian honey wine offers a burning tongue some respite from hot chili peppers.  We tried both honey wines on the menu.  The amber-colored honey wine from Ethiopia was medium sweet with a recognizable taste of honey.  The pink-colored Honeyrun Cranberry Honey Wine from California smelled like honey, but tasted more like a really sweet sangria reduction.  I think I’d recommend the former, but if you absolutely can’t handle sweet sippin’ wine there are plenty of other beers, wines, teas and coffees to choose from.

My advice?  Go hungry, take friends, order from different food groups.