E'Njoni Ethiopian Fusion — Restaurant in Portland

I think most reviewers are killing this restaurant with kindness rather than being brutally honest. I’m not going to do that. I’m going give fair and honest feedback. If the owners take this to heart it could be a boon to their business. This review is based on only one dining experience, approx 7:30 pm on Sunday, I chose the $15 Buffett option. I only sampled approx 1/2 of their food offerings. The good: the staff was friendly with good intentions. The beef tibs was tasty on parr with any dish anywhere. $15 was low end for an all you can eat Buffet in Portland. They had a reasonable number of offerings in total for a buffet. Reasonable ambiance. The bad: parking was not adequate. The lighting over the buffet area was so bad I didn’t even see the buffet until the staff pointed it out: it’s in the back near a small hallway. Lighting is so poor it’s hard to see the food items well. Some of the food items were only warm and not hot. There was little room to park ones plate: the logistics need to be reconsidered. It was manageable only because the traffic was so low. Had there been a crowd it would have simply been impossible: inadequate space for people and plates, and thus the point: there won’t BE a crowd until they get these deficiencies corrected. I tried approx 12 out approx 24 offerings. I found most of them to be either somewhat bland or hot spicey or both. Such low intensity flavoring inhibited my adventure. I’d have tried more dishes had my senses been courted. Of the dishes I tasted: no sweet, no sour, nothing unusually flavorful: except beef tibs. Finally a dish on parr with what my grandmother would have made. But my grandmother DID make saffron rice! Their saffron rice had so little saffron in it, it was neither yellow ( enough to be noticed in that lighting) or able to be tasted, and I KNOW saffron’s taste. Hey, I know it’s an expensive spice, but either do it right or don’t do it. I liked their one hummus offering, they just didn’t keep it stocked: unforgivable! Notice their website isn’t working: lack of effort. Suggestions for the buffet: Fix your physical environment: space for people, plates, lighting, imagine accommodating a large crowd. If you are going to just use a bunch of crock pots: fine: keep them all temperature set appropriately, and make your cold section cold: put it on ice. A good carpenter could probably solve the problem acceptably for $3000, well for $5000. It’s OK to have some bland offerings, but make sure most are intensely seasoned, and have the seasonings differ dramatically if possible. Appeal to each of these flavorings dynamically: sweet, sour, salty, acrid, with at least 1, better two dishes each. Keep your offerings full, even just before closing, or warn customers that their $15 won’t go as far when they walk in. If you are going to offer Saffroned rice, put some serious saffron in it. Either serve it right or don’t serve it. I don’t think you charge enough to justify the cost. There were only two flesh animal dishes in the buffet: chicken and beef tibs. I’d include 1-2 more perhaps fish? Hey, a bit of a dessert offering for the buffet?! If you’ve got some patterns of low demand offerings: drop and replace. Better to offer 15 really high demand dishes, than 25, only 15 of which are popular. Otherwise, people like me will STOP getting adventurous and give up trying new items thinking if their first choices are that uninteresting, how good could those less interesting choices be? Keep in mind SOMETHING will be high demand cuz people will eat till they are full. You need to introduce one NEW food offering each month, understand traffic reflects true demand. After you’ve made these improvements: raise your prices a bit: I drove 25 miles for a $15 buffet, I had a $ 14 buffet in my own back yard. I don’t mind paying a bit more, just make the food unforgettable and I’ll come back for a $19 buffet. Fix your website. These are all effort related deficiencies IMO. Continue to be sweet people, just work harder to upgrade behind the...

My experience at E'Njoni Cafe left much to be desired and unless my experience is shown to be out of the ordinary, I won't be returning.

tl;dr Pro: Decent quality food Con: Very inattentive service; small portions; no water, napkins, or utensils

I was with three others when we went into the cafe around 7:00pm on a Saturday night. We were told to seat ourselves as there were only around five other parties in the restaurant, so there was much open seating.

There was one server working that night, which I would assume is sufficient given the low traffic, though they did not seem very attentive and never checked in with the table aside from when we ordered and when we were given out check.

My partner and I ordered the vegetarian combination platter. The food itself was tasty (which is why I'm rating two starts, as opposed to one), though the portions were much smaller than I have experienced at other Ethiopian restaurants, around half the size of what I'm used to. The different dishes on the platter were also closely grouped together, making it difficult to keep them relatively separate and enjoy them in isolation if one chose.

After our food was served I sat there waiting for the basket of injera which is usually served alongside a combination platter at other restaurants, though none came with it. All that my partner and I had to eat our meal was the injera that on which our food was served. I should note that we were never given utensils, which usually isn't a problem at Ethiopian places due to there being sufficient injera, but this was not the case. Likewise, we were never given napkins with our meal.

By the time we finished our meal and our trays had been bussed we finally received the water we asked for when we first ordered, though only because we asked for water again.

I try to keep an open mind and be forgiving of restaurant performance during the pandemic given that the service industry is having difficulty hiring people, but even given this, I still think E'Njoni Cafe grossly underperformed. If the restaurant is understaffed, it's fine to let your customers know this and to ask for more patience. It's not fine to ignore your customers however.

Perhaps the person who was serving us was new, though I'm not sure why E'Njoni Cafe would have a new server/busser work a Saturday night by themselves, even if there are only five parties currently dining.

Unless E'Njoni Cafe is able to greatly improve their customer service and increase their portion size (even if this means charging a bit more) I won't...

The three names you always hear when people discuss PDX Ethiopian restaurants are Queen of Sheba, Dalo's Kitchen, and Bete-Lukas. I can't understand why E'Njoni doesn't get the same level of recognition as these three, because the meals I have here are consistently better. It's like the difference between Chaba Thai and run-of-the-mill suburban shopping-center Thai restaurants: the menu items look the same, but the versions served here are more fully realized, if that makes sense. The vegetables are fresher, the spices are perfectly balanced, and the food's been cooked for the exact right amount of time.

My favorite dish is the inguadi tibs (curried mushrooms and onions). Or if you're getting a combination plate, I highly recommend the timtimo (berbere lentils), keysir (heavenly beets), and hamli (greens). The combination of sweet and savory/spicy, all wrapped up in the earthy sourness of the injera makes it the most unexpectedly satisfying comfort food I've ever had (and I'm from Georgia, so I know from comfort food). The azifa (cool lentil salad with jalapenos) is also a stand out, and this is the only place I know that serves it.

E'Njoni also has a much more pleasant atmosphere than the others. Bete Lukas tries too hard to be upscale and comes off as a little seedy instead, and Dalo's and Sheba simply lack any atmosphere at all, but this place is warm, comfortable, and intimate. It's a great place to take a date or settle in for a few hours to study. The service is always quick, and the owners are some of the most genuinely friendly restauranteurs you will encounter...