Does anyone sell Injera, made daily, in San Francisco? I picked up a Sheba brand 100% Teff Injera from Rainbow’s refrigerator section and its lackluster. The 24 hour ferment isn’t long enough to give it the desired tang.
Not in SF, but right off the freeway in Oakland, I’ve enjoyed the injera from Ras Dashen. For a few bucks, you get a huge amount, 100% teff with lots of tang.
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I guess the question is- is injera popular enough to be in markets often enough? My guess is no, so the best best may be a restaurant that serves a rendition you like.
Maybe a restaurant is a way to go. Any ideas? I tend not to eat Ethiopian food in SF, and can’t think of a place that has a good, sour injera.
If all else fails, I’ll hit Oakland (Ras Dashen or Ensarro or Cafe Colucci)
You should have brought 50lbs of that stuff back from your trip and freeze them!
That was my fatal mistake - I need the injera to eat all the powdered spices and legumes I bought there! (Shiro wat goes surprisingly well on sourdough bread but it’s not the same)
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We buy our injera from the Ethiopian restaurant/cafe Moya in SOMA. We usually call ahead to make sure they have extra that they’re willing to sell to us (I think they asked us to do this once); this hasn’t been a problem and I imagine that if you just show up (and request a reasonably small quantity), they’ll be happy to help you. They’re friendly folks.
The price is quite reasonable if I recall correctly: $1.50 per piece.
Note: I haven’t eaten at the restaurant so cannot vouch for its other dishes. The injera though is good enough that we’re willing to buy it regularly for whenever we make Ethiopian food at home.
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Thanks for the tip! Moya is easy for me to get to. I’ll call ahead to ensure they have 100% teff injera in stock.
I don’t recall anything specific about Moya’s injera (that’s a good sign 
), but found a meal there in 2015 very good, probably better than any other place I’ve tried in SF.
Thanks for the tip about Moya’s tef injera! To my delight, its very sour, so much so I’ll have to be careful how I season my dishes.
They confirmed that tef injera is not available for sale every day, and its best to call ahead.
Btw, I had an excellent meal at Oakland’s Ensarro last week, but was discouraged by their tef injera, which lacked a sufficient degree of sourness.
That was an awesome tip about Ras Dashen market in Oakland! I got some injera from them earlier this week, and it’s still good a few days later. It’s 100% Teff, the dough is fermented for three days, and you can get 5 pieces for $5-- that’s such a steal I felt compelled to buy some other products from them. It’s less vinegary than Moya’s, and I found it paired better with the dishes I cooked up.
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Rainbow now carries a brand of tef injera from a company called Shoulder Dancing. The expiration date of the one I got was around two weeks in the future, and it recovered well both by heating in a pan and by microwaving underneath of moist towel. Tang not extreme, but good enough.
They also carry three or four preprepared Ethiopian dishes from Shoulder Dancing. The misir wot, red lentils, needed more assertive spicing but I would still consider it one of the better preprepared meals I’ve gotten at rainbow.
Their defunct restaurant had four items on the dinner menu Do these look familiar?
Is it supposed to be in Ethiopia?
Of what I’ve had in Ethiopia, the tang was enough to contrast with the other dishes— fermented tangy, not vinegary. Tef is earthy, so the tang is not as overwhelming as in some white wheat sourdough breads or bok tong go. Shoulder Dancing’s was tangier than some tef injera I’ve had in the SFBA, not as tangy as others… noting of course it did not list the date of manufacture. Price and freshness wise, the Oakland places are they way to go, but I’ll be a reapeay buyer of Shoulder Dancing’s injera and it saves me from having to annoy restaurants to get some.
@Souperman , thanks for the links. I found a website. It looks like the former restaurant is the same business.
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San Jose is a bit far from SF, but I’ve had good injera from Zeni years ago: http://zeniethiopianrestaurant.com/
If you’re ever down south, might be worth checking out.
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