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Please join us for dinner and jazz on Wednesday, February 27 at T's Place, 2713 E. Lake St. Minneapolis.

We stopped in the other night at T's Place, the Ethiopian-Malaysian fusion restaurant a couple of doors down from the Town Talk Diner, to check out Yohannes Tona and his band. I'd read a piece in the Twin Cities Daily Planet by Dwight Hobbes that described Ethiopian-born Tona as "the baddest bass guitar player in the Twin Cities."

As luck would have it, Tona was off gigging in Las Vegas, but we weren't disappointed: his replacement was an amazing Cameroonian guitar player named Kenn Wanaku, who led Tona's regulars in a couple of high energy sets that ranged from reggae and merengue to Congolese soukous and West African hilife, with a little Paul Simon and Bob Marley thrown in as well.

The only sour note was that the place was nearly empty. So Carol and I decided, we have to get a bunch of friends - and Breaking Bread Readers - together and come back and make an evening of it: Tona and his band play (almost) every Wednesday night. So we are scheduling our little get-together for a week from today - Wednesday, February 27.

Carol and I will plan to arrive by 8 p.m., and the music starts at 9:00.

T's Place offers a unique menu - a combination of traditional Ethiopian dishes, served on a tray covered with injera (a pancake-like flat bread), and some Malaysian-Ethiopian dishes that chef T Belachew invented when he was a chef-partner with Kin Lee at Singapore!. For menu details, check the website. Prices for food and drinks - they have a full bar - are very reasonable, and there is no cover charge for the music.

We're asking everybody to order - and pay - for themselves, though you are very welcome to follow the Ethiopian custom of eating from a shared tray.(With your fingers, if you really want to be authentic.)

Please email me at iggers@rakemag.com, if you plan to attend. Or just show up.