Awash Ethiopian Restaurant — Restaurant in New York

Came here for a fun date night, the decor is a bit dated - kind of a no frills environment. Minimal server interaction, took our orders, drop off our order, clear the table, and gave us our check - serious no frills environment. I usually don't mind minimal server interaction, but at least offer to explain some of the dishes offered or any specials available - we needed to ask about the dinner special.

I was running a bit late so I missed the happy hour special on the drinks, but they offered a dinner special that comes with 2 glasses of wine. We ordered a few samosas as appetizer and the Awash combo of meats and veggie w/two glasses of wines. The food was divine and was quite happy to be given a fork, as I completely fail to adjust to eating with my hands only. The breading portion given might not look like much or filling, but boy did the starch expand in the stomach - we were stuff at the end we couldn't finish...

Food was good - freshly made, well-spiced. The injera rolls were served cold, clearly had been in the fridge. Would have been nicer to have had freshly-made injera. Price was about $20/person for combination plates for five people. Service was okay. What bothered me was that there was a sharing charge, and that if the party ordered less in combination plates than the number of people in the party, there would be a surcharge. Seemed absurd to me for Ethiopian food, which is served and eaten shared, even more so than Chinese food! I was also not pleased when the waitress informed me that she had done me the favor of automatically adding a 20% tip to the entire tab (including the tax), for our party of five, even though I had to seek her out at the register to get a check, after having repeatedly asked for one. But the food...

A couple of weeks ago after celebrating our 17th Wedding Anniversary at an African drumming circle in Central Park, my husband and I decided to go to one of our favorite restaurants - Awash! (The Manhattan Valley location.) Since 1994 this family owned business has been serving astonishingly delicious food to their fortunate constituency. We decided to dine outside and enjoy the beautiful September evening that graced us.We ordered the Gomen Besiga (lamb with collard greens) the Veggie Sampler and washed it down with an Ethiopian Beer and Honey Wine. For dessert we had Ethiopian coffee, and their decadent rum cake - which was given to us on the house to celebrate the occasion. I highly encourage you to eat here. We are truly privileged to have such world class, authentic Ethiopian cuisine mere blocks from...