Hawi — Restaurant in City of Ithaca

I went to an Ethiopian restaurant for the first time in Maryland and their service and food were great. When I found Hawi restaurant in Ithaca, I was thrilled because it's in my hometown and I craved Ethiopian food. My partner and I went there for the first time the other night and we were looking forward to it.

When we got a table, the first thing we noticed was the very wobbly and sticky table. The mirrors on the walls were distracting and an eyesore because they reflect car lights right in your eyes as they pass by, depending on where you sit. Also, when the door closes, it slams so loudly that it startled my partner over a dozen times during our visit.

We ordered food; he got lamb and I got steak strips with veggies. As we got our plates with injera, we asked for a fork and the waiter told us, in passing, to use injera to pick up the food. While it is nice to experience cultural differences but this was not an issue at another Ethiopian restaurant or Asian restaurants, and we thought that was odd. He didn't approach our table to ask how he could help or explain anything. Usually, restaurants will ask if you've ever visited before so they can explain things such as this.

My food was really good but my partner's lamb was too salty and basically inedible. Neither server came to check in on our meal or fill his glass of water at all. The waiter glanced over at our table and made eye contact with me many times, noticed that my partner barely touched his plate, yet he didn't come over for over 40 minutes and it became too late for my partner to eat something else because the restaurant was closing. He seemed to have the same level of attentiveness to the other two tables. The restaurant was not busy at all.

When the waiter finally came over, it was just to give us the bill. My partner told him about the salty lamb and he didn't care. Didn't even ask why, apologize, or offer a replacement or comp. Then my partner had to ask to get it off the bill and he carelessly said ok. I asked for a box and he brought it WITH A FORK. So weird.

I felt bad that my partner was still starving when we left. Even though my food was delicious, the entire experience was disappointing. As much as I wish it was better, we're not...

This place is the saddest place in the name of restaurants and customer service. The strange thing is I've been here previously and the food was good and the service was good. But this time we walked in and were seated quickly. The server gave us the menu and gave us time to decide our meal. When he came back and we told him our order, he started saying "we don't have this dish, we don't have that appetizer". It seemed like they ran out of lot of stuff since it was a long weekend. That's quite strange because the restaurant has been around a long time in this area and has gone through long weekends before too. But this time they ran out of boneless chicken, and appetizers. So we changed our order and asked for chicken drumsticks which he said they had and we changed our appetizers too. After taking our revised order, he came back again after few minutes saying that they were low in chicken drumsticks too.

This was like "the straw which broke the camel's back ". This was too much and so we left. Before we left, I asked for the manager and I was told that there was no manager and the owner was the cooking and she was busy because their other cooks hadn't showed up. I told the server that I was going to write a review but it didn't seem to bother.

If a restaurant doesn't have most of the major menu selections, they should either quickly purchase their supplies locally so that they can serve their customers without losing business. In any book, such behavior by a restaurant means the restaurant is destined to fail. We were forced to leave and walk around looking for other food.

We love Ethiopian food but we will definitely go elsewhere and never recommend this place. If I could give this a negative...

We're very happy to have an Ethiopian restaurant in town. The food is solid, though of course there is variation in certain dishes. We generally get a combo to share with a mixed crowd and I often get a veggie combo for myself, which is great because I love the variety. The combo is so much food I don't know how people can order appetizers. We only do because we like to try the items, but we always end up taking food home. Injera doesn't improve with time and dries out, but the food is still so good and the injera under the dishes is both flavorful and moist.

The collard greens are chopped fine and well seasoned. The Ethiopian preparation is honestly the only way I like collard greens at all. Overall, good seasoning on dishes and a pleasant place. I like all the vegetarian dishes but have a great fondness for beets, so that's always a favorite. The potatoes were not fully cooked on this last visit, but I had a huge chunk.

They can make traditional coffee but that takes a lot of time. If you want it and don't want to sit around forever, you may need to flag down your server, as it seems like they don't customarily ask if you're interested in ordering it. (This is my experience on multiple visits.)

The atmosphere is casual and pleasant, not fancy but more than utilitarian (in my mind, that style relies on travel posters for decor, like a place I went to once in Oregon). Of course they have utensils if you ask but they do assume that you know what you're in for and they give you wipes after the meal.

BYOB as they don't have a liquor license. There's a liquor store across the street...