Tagla

The lovely T of Premium-T (and former south-end neighbor) recently suggested a meal at Tagla, AKA the Ethiopian restaurant across from the Walgreens, next door to the tattoo parlor, at the somewhat uninspiring intersection of Genesee and Rainier. Today I had the treat of lunch out with my mother, and we gave it a try.

Something that I love about Ethiopian restaurants, generally speaking, is that they seem to often be family run. Today Tagla was staffed by an older man who is the owner, a beautiful matriarch who was our waitress and also the cook, and a younger man busy working on something at a table in the corner. They were all gracious hosts and treated us like guests.
We split the vegetarian combo, which was $12 and more food than we could finish, and it came with the unexpected delight of 8 different items. There were multiple types of lentils, veggies, curries, salads etc. The greens were especially delicious, and all of the dishes had a variety of spices and flavors that were really fantastic. I appreciated that a couple of the dishes actually had a little heat to them as well. Tagla may well provide my favorite Ethiopian restaurant veggie combo yet.

Something exciting for the vegans is that Tagla's default is to use oil in their vegetarian dishes, and butter in their meat dishes, so it should be easy to get a satisfying vegan meal here.

The location leaves a bit to be desired, but they have been in business for many years so something must be working.