Evidence of the Easter weekend end-of-fast celebrations is everywhere. There are bones scattered around the roadsides, a noticeable lack of chickens and there is the head of a cow rotting in the lane outside our house.

As a nearly-veggie I had some mixed feelings about trying one of Ethiopias trademark dishes: tibs. Tibs is just fried chopped meat served with injera. There are tibs houses all over the place, i.e. restaurants which serve tibs, and they close down during the 55 day fast. Tibs houses usually only serve tibs, so they are true veggie no-go areas. Leena and Fiona took me to a tibs house in the centre of town on Monday night. This particular place only serves goat tibs. On arrival you are confronted by a rack of freshly-slaughtered goat carcasses. You go up to the carcass counter, order a half kilo or one kilo portion of tibs and receive a ticket with your number on it. A few minutes later your portion of fried chopped goat is brought to your table, sitting in a beautiful clay pot with some burning charcoal in a little burner underneath. Apart from a small side bowl of extremely spicy chilli sauce, there is no sauce or seasoning with the meat. The tibs was actually quite nice; plain and very subtle in flavour. Ethiopian food is usually served lukewarm-to-cold because it is eaten by hand. Tibs is reassuringly sizzling hot and made from meat that’s fresher than most meat you would be able to buy at home. With a large glass of cold beer and our table faintly illuminated by glowing charcoal, my first tibs experience was good. I have to try beef tibs now. Unfortunately you don’t get chicken tibs. Imagine, a whole restaurant that does good business on only one dish!