Yod Abyssinia Cultural Restaurant

Last night we took the participants on the international course out for a cultural restaurant for dinner and to see the traditional Ethiopian dance performances they showcase. Yod Abyssinia is the current, hot cultural restaurant in town, usurping the Crown Hotel restaurant and dance in popularity thanks to its central location. Interestingly, the owner of Yod used to own Crown Hotel, where we've taken people in previous years. And if you like scandals...apparently ownership of the Crown changed hands as the result of a divorce, so the owner of Yod is now competing with his ex-wife.
Although we enjoyed Yod for it's location, stunning decor (such as a 10 foot Ethiopian jebena coffee pot decorating one wall) and friendly service, Crown probably has the better dance show. The dancers at either place have amazing skills, but Crown has more dancers--and thus the "bigger" show--and the performances take place on the restaurant floor under a huge domed ceiling in the middle of the dining area (previously mentioned here) where customers are welcomed to join in. In contrast, Yod is set up more like a theater with a stage at the front where performers shoulder pop, jump and gyrate, although some of the int'l participants were welcomed up on stage at one point in the night, and later the dancers went around to the various tables and danced one-on-one with customers (luckily I was spared).
Some people said they preferred the food at Crown, while others said Yod wins hands-down, but the saying that the success of a restaurant hinges on 3 things, "location, location, location", seems undoubtedly true. We arrived a bit early, around 7pm. The restaurant is huge and our large group of 30 filled only one corner of the dining area. But by half-past-eight, the place was packed--120 people easy--and when we left around 9:30, there were still people driving up.