Ethiopia: World Cup sticklers can take a big bite of spicy kitfo. I know Ethiopia did not qualify for Brazil 2014. However, I could not find a Cameroonian restaurant and since there are three other west African nations in the tournament, I decided to point my taste buds towards east Africa.

An Eritrean cabbie recommended Wazema, on the Danforth at Greenwood. When I entered with my friends, the restaurant’s patrons were all Ethiopian (although over the evening the clientele became more mixed). One of the gals with me had spent time in the country, but the other had never tried its food, so we settled on a sampler. It came on a platter covered by injera, a spongy sourdough flatbread, with various foods heaped on top. These included the aforementioned kifto (spicy, raw ground beef), tibs (stewed meat), ayibe (like a dry, crumbly feta cheese), and vegetables. Observing the right-hand-only rule, we used pieces of injera to pick up food with our fingers. Good stuff, but gets you sweating!

Feeling culturally enriched, we proceeded to Menchies on Bloor for unreasonable helpings of frozen yogurt topped extravagantly with too much of whatever we wanted.

Iran: If you ever invite two Greeks and a Spaniard out to dinner for 6pm, expect them counter-propose a much more civilized start time. So, we started with the movie instead. If you’re into watching buff Athenians and Spartans slaughtering Persians in gory, theatrical 3D slo-mo (as well as the pouty, sexy villain Eva Green), then “300: Rise of an Empire” is a worthy use of 102 minutes. After seeing Greeks make a meal of king Xerxes’ army and navy, it was a great pleasure to have Persian food with friends of the Hellenic persuasion.

After a cold, moonlit walk from the theatre, we strode into the small-but-packed Sheherazade (College at Bathurst), with an 8:30pm reservation more in line with Mediterranean dining sensibilities. It was kebabs all-round, with saffron-flavoured rice and – for me – Doogh, a house-made salted yogurt beverage that tastes better than it sounds.