Ethio-LunchBox — Restaurant in California

Finding a place which is open on the New Year's Day for dinner wasn't exactly easy, especially since we finished the movie at around 9PM, so we drove for a bit and settled on eating at this Ethiopian place.

I have never had Ethiopian food and it was indeed a novel experience.

The atmosphere: besides our table, everyone else (and they all seemed to Ethiopian) was simply drinking (tea) and talking: we were the only table which ordered food. Maybe the Ethiopians just don't eat dinner this late? The restaurant itself was very spacious, but the individual dining space was not; however, we didn't feel cramped either. It just felt like a lot of "space" was unused, unadorned for some reason. Maybe simplicity is better according to the Ethiopians?

The service: we had much difficulty conveying what we wanted besides the food (my friends wanted tea). It took some efforts but eventually our request was fulfilled. The waiter and waitress were overall, however, friendly and responsive, despite the language barrier.

The food: I was really glad that my friends chose to have the food with medium level of spiciness: even that level was too strong for my taste I found. However, the experience was unique (good even): food is served on a platter, and you use injera (which is flatbread made from teff) to wrap the food to eat. Imagine eating a pizza, and instead of using your hands, you use gloves to grab the pizza, except that the gloves are themselves edible. Not a perfect example I know but I think that may help you get the idea ;-).

I have to be fair, so there are a couple of complaints: the flatbread was always served cold, and while the food itself wasn't cold, it wasn't hot either. The other complaint is that for some reason, the two different lamb dishes we ordered turned out to be one lamb and one chicken (I think either we can't read the subheadings, or it was mislabelled under Lamb :-p).

Overall though, it was an interesting and pretty pleasant experience (but please take that last comment with a grain of salt: I was eating with...

Haven't had Ethiopian food in a while, and since my friend and I were missing the old Reheboth Cafe, we were in the search! Luckily, we found this place! It was night time, and right outside, were a bunch of guys just staring at us intensely. I mean, "two Asian guys and a white guy walk into an Ethiopian Cafe" is usually the start of some racist joke, but let me tell you: This place is no joke! The food is great! We ordered the mild spicy level foods because my company couldn't really handle spicy, and even the "weak guy" of us kept eating the spicy stuff, and crying with joy (also from the spices).

After we came in though, the sign was immediately flipped to "Close". Don't think they were expecting to serve food on New Years Evening, but there were others just hanging out and having a good time. Only complaint I had, was the tea. Although they used Lipton tea bags, they managed to put the right spices in there to give it a slight hint of that flavor I'm used to when it comes to Ethiopian tea. Not the best, but it wasn't bad considering what they were dealing with. I'd come back again if I was...

Not the best Ethiopian I've had but not the worst. Pretty reasonable prices. I went in about 7PM and they were out of multiple menu items. I appreciate that they let me know that up front so I could choose wisely. I had the goat and the veggie platter and it was a good size for two people. They were very attentive with service and provided a lot of injera right from the start (I love that cause I tend to always ask for more). If you pay with credit card they bring a iPhone based card reader right to your table which is great for tipping and getting a...