Menelik

What a gem of a place! From the outside it looks unassuming, but entering the restaurant you are assailed with rich aromas of coffee and frankincense and welcomed by the extremely friendly and helpful staff.

The menu is good, catering for veggies and carnivores alike. I had the raw steak marinated in hot spicy sauce. The others in my party had a kind of sample plate of the veggie options and a mildly spiced lamb dish. All of them were absolutely delicious, the lamb option was served on it's own charcoal heater to keep it warm.

The way of eating it all is great, it's served with a giant pancake between you, slightly sour tasting but delicious. You get a mountain of more pancake to use as well. You then serve your dish onto the pancake and use it to scoop the food up, much like a chappati.

The whole meal, 3 main dishes, 6 beers and the "coffee ceremony" (mentioned in a previous post) came to about £45, which for the amount of food received and superb service and helpfulness of the staff, was an absolute bargain. Well recommended, a great night and something I'll be doing again soon :)
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Edd Almond
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 10
Monday, February 11, 2008

A group of friends and I had dinner here on Friday, and it was an absolutely fabulous evening. We convinced the staff to let us enjoy the 'realistic' Ethiopian experience and they took away our plates and we ate our food from the injera with our hands and then giggled about the orange finges we ended up with. We were a rowdy group, but the atmosphere was great, definitely deserved more than a 4.0. It was the cheapest, best value for money night out in London I have ever had. We drunk lots, ate until we could eat no more then topped it off by having the coffee & Frankincense ceremony, and all for £15 a head. Bargain.
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Andrea
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Had dinner here last Friday. It's a great find although one shouldn't expect too much from the decor/ambiance. Ethiopian food is really quite under-rated: dishes are faintly reminiscent of southern Indian, but rather more delicate in flavour and much less spicy. The service was excellent and despite the staff not speaking fluent English, the waitress was very helpful (e.g. suggesting that we might not want one of the beef dishes we had initially chosen because it may be too much of an acquired taste). Also impressed by her suggestion that 3 dishes was more than enough for the two of us (and it was!) indicating that she wasn't just trying to get us to spend a lot. We had chicken in a thick gravy served with cottage cheese, a lamb dish that was served in a sweet little clay burner, and a potato and spinach dish. All eaten with injira and superb. Dinner with soft drinks came up to £20 TOTAL. Now THAT is a bargain! Go -- it's worth the daunting trek up the Caledonian Road on a dark night!
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LT
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 10
Wednesday, January 18, 2006