Alem Ethiopian Village — Restaurant in Milwaukee

Alem Ethiopian Village is a Ethiopian restaurant in the downtown area, providing buffet options by day and extensive sampler options.

Food: We choose to do the Carnivore Sampler, which was 5 different meat dishes, and 2 chosen veggie dishes on a large platter. There are no eating utensils at all. You use the bread that comes with the dish to scoop up the dishes, and create little hand sandwiches. I won’t go through each item, but rather evaluate on the meal itself. One thing that seemed to be missing out of the eating experience was any sort of standouts, or complexities to the dishes. Everything tasted good, but nothing stood out as great, or better than another. For instance, two of the meat options tasted exactly the same, and even looked very similar. I would harken it to going on a buffet, taking a scoop of everything, and eating; you may like everything, but you would probably leave not having one thing better than the other, or have inaccurate judgments of the food based on simply eating so many different dishes at once.

Outside of this, there isn’t much more to comment on the food. It really is an experience that makes this restaurant special. If you are looking for a more traditional experience to eating a dish from a different culture, this would be a good place to try.

Atmosphere: Nothing overly special. It is a decent space, but nothing overly stands out as overly authentic or something that would draw you in.

Service: Service was very fast and kind.

Overall: 6/10. I wouldn’t see the food/atmosphere/service were bad or anything on the like, however nothing overly stood out except for the different eating experience itself. The food was fine, but more akin to a buffet quality, and you get a decent amount. However, in a culinary rich town as Milwaukee, it wouldn’t be a place we’d...

We visited Alem Ethiopian Village for the first time early on a Saturday evening. We were promptly greeted and seated, even sans reservation. The restaurant was about half full when we arrived, but quickly filled up by 7PM.

We started off with the sambusa as an appetizer, requesting the beef. I think we received the lentil, but were still happy with them. Nicely fried and crispy, with good spices. For our entrées, we ordered the lamb L2 (fantastic, deliciously spiced but not too spicy, in a wonderful red pepper sauce), and vegetarian V1 (lentils in red pepper sauce - my favorite), V2 (steamed collard greens - pretty good), and V3 (yellow split peas in sauce – good, although definitely strong on the garlic).

They have a decent selection of mostly imported beers, as well as some wine. Opting to have our entrées served on the same platter with injera worked well, and the injera itself was delicious; probably the best I’ve had. The food was delicious, the atmosphere was welcoming, and the service was very pleasant. However, only two people were serving the whole (full) dining room, and they probably could have used at least one extra person. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit, and plan on returning to check out some of the other options on their...

If you like Indian food, you will love this restaurant! I was skeptical about trying Ethiopian food, never having had it before I didn't know if it was too "weird" for me - but thank the gods I have good friends who showed me the light! I love Indian food and this was similar. I tried about every dish on the vegan buffet and I swear - it was all delicious! I came back for dinner a week later with a group and we ordered the family style platters and absolutely every single thing on them was heavenly! The service was friendly and efficient (although we were told we were going to get individual plates to scoop the food from the platters onto, but they never came. Who cares! Eating out of the big family platter was just fine!) Eating with your hands, tearing off the bread and pinching just the right bite-sized portion into the bread, pop it into your mouth - new experience for me and it was wonderful. Everyone loved the food, no one said they didn't like this or that. I can't wait to go back. And the fact that the lunch buffet was all vegan garners my highest rating - Five Stars!...