East Dragon

For New Year's Eve, I joined nine of my colleagues for dinner at the East Dragon Chinese restaurant near Bole Medhane Alem Cathedral. It's the seventh Chinese restaurant I've been to in Addis. Taste-wise, it probably ranks number three on my list. We sat in a private room located down a narrow hallway. After taking our seats and perusing the menu, we ordered spicy mapodofu, peppered pork, boiled dumplings, fried rice, and a few other dishes. Gradually, the Ethiopian waitresses placed the dishes on the large, glass lazy susan in the center of our table. After about 30 minutes, we realized the dumplings hadn't arrived, so I walked further down the narrow hallway, took a left and found myself at the kitchen. Four Chinese guys were busy cooking, but no dumplings in sight. I flagged down a waitress and reminded her of our order. Ten minutes later, a plate of about 40 dumplings arrived with one small bowl of dipping sauce. We slowly turned the food-merry-go-round (four times?) so each person could grab a dumpling, dip it and eat it--like some sort of dis-assembly line.