Though useful for freeing up hands, spoons, forks, and knives hog unnecessary table space and may prove dangerous in restaurants staffed by out-of-work swashbucklers. Embrace cutlass-less cuisine with today’s Groupon: for $29, you get a prix fixe Ethiopian dinner for two at Red Sea Restaurant & Bar in Oakland (up to a $60.28 total value). The meal includes:

• Two appetizers (up to a $4.65 value each)
• Two entrees (up to a $12.99 value each)
• One bottle of wine (up to an $18.50 value)
• Two desserts (up to $3.25 value each)
  
  

Red Sea enchants diners with authentic Eritrean and Ethiopian cuisine, serving sharable plates of spiced veggies, tender proteins, and spongy injera. Commence the comestible adventure with an order of vegetable sambusa, a fritter pillow filled with green peas, carrots, and jalapeño spices, before mounting up to mealtime’s zenith with the kilwa begee yebeg tibs, a plate full of savory lamb cuts sautéed in spiced butter, onions, and green peppers and gently laced with black pepper. Carnivorous diners delight over the herbal butter simmered beef zelbo, tossed with spinach, ginger root, and onions, or the hot beef zigni kei wot, simmered in red-pepper sauce and served with an optional fire marshal, and herbivores may gravitate toward the shiro—chickpeas that arrive mildly seasoned with onions, tomato paste, and light pepper.

Bottles of wine, such as an African chardonnay or a California merlot, subdue spicy flavors and complement cheeks’ natural ruddy pigmentations. Dinner for two comes complete with a duet of desserts, including choices such as tiramisu, cappuccino mousse cake, or baklava, all of which are well versed in the entire Fleetwood Mac catalog.