Ethiopian Restaurant Sunshine — Restaurant in Utrecht

We tried Sunshine after hearing at least two other friends trying them and giving a thumbs up. I think it gives a unique eating experience because of the communal sharing eating style. There are however some hits and lots of misses.

Warning: you will eat with hands from the same plate with others so make sure you feel comfortable with both features.

The interior decoration is a bit dark and there is a lot of things I don’t know. The place can get a bit noisy when everyone talks at the same time.

Service wise, we had to wait for a while before having the menu or even getting the cheque. The staff was definitely busy to attend a big crowd on Sat evening. None explained to us how to eat the foods on the plate. When we asked for cutlery, the elderly man just smiled but did not do anything. Luckily a younger staff came later with more instructions and (finally) a spoon.

The foods are generally good and flavourful. We ordered the surprised menu of 3 main mixed dishes. We think we had a kind of braised beef pieces, beef mince and lamb along with veggies sides like kale, chickpea, tomato and fresh salad. There were 3 soft, slightly sour (fermented) pancakes on the side and another one as the base of the foods. The portion was definitely big and filling for 2 people. However I found the 3 meat dishes quite similar, so I’d recommend the restaurant to select 3 more contrast meat and spice level to make them more interesting.

The honey wine has a slightly spice note, a bit sour before I can feel the alcohol. If it’s chilled, it may taste better. It’s also difficult to drink from an open mouth, narrow neck bottle.

Overall this is a unique eating experience for anyone who has not tried Ethiopian cuisine before. I am myself not sure if I will try...

I graded the service low, but the reason is not because of the friendly service. It was due to the long wait time and unexplainable charges for our food. Otherwise, they have an uplifting, positive personality there.

I’ve ordered food here a few times for takeout and typically have good experiences. However, when I visited the restaurant to eat there, we were charged much more than expected (about 15 euros more). The portion received at the restaurant was much less than what we usually get from takeout. Conveniently, the cash register was not working that day, so they told us that we would need to pay in cash after we finished our food. After we paid, we had no receipt so I checked the menu prices to figure out how it was possible to be charged that much since the math was not adding up. Unfortunately, we were charge much more than the total menu items.

Edit: After reading other reviews, it very much seems that there is sketchy business practices here. I would avoid eating here. If you really want Ethiopian food, I recommend you order takeout online to avoid unexpected charges. We were originally seated at the bar while waiting for a table and remember seeing the owner take card payments, but assumed that it did not work while we were dining. Funny enough, the owner was handing a receipt to a customer when we came back with our cash, but we were determined to pay in cash since we went out of our way to get some from the ATM. An investigation should...

I don't really like to post negative experiences because I don't like trying to sink people, but this experience was just too much. We went to this restaurant on a weekday, and there were only 3 tables to be served ahead of us. The waiter suggests us to not even look at the menu and get his "special plate". We agree, not knowing that it would be the beginning of more than 1.5 hours wait, during which they didn't even offer us anything to dampen our hunger. We finally got the food, and it was a really normal indjera, pretty good but nothing special. Once it was time to pay, we were a bit surprised that the total amounted to more than 30 euros per person, for a plate we never even saw the price of. To be honest, I would have still preferred not to leave a negative review, but something that happened during our neverending wait made me change my mind. Upon seeing my annoyed face 1 hour and fifteen minutes in, the waiter/owner tells me as he walks off "you know, we don't need you!" I can gloss over being swindled with a waiter recommendation that ends up being overly expensive, I can begrudgingly accept the 1.5 hour wait on a Tuesday night, but I cannot accept being told off at the same time. I will never ever go to this...