Queen of Sheba Restaurant — Restaurant in Portland

Recently a friend brought me 3 of my favorite Ethiopian dishes plus injera while I was convalescing. She asked me if Queen of Sheba was acceptable, and since I had only eaten at Queen of Sheeba twice in the 24 years I've lived in Portland, I couldn't think of a reason to object to the selection. I was quickly reminded of why we don't eat there, but go out of our ways to eat elsewhere; as I would wait until I was in Berkley, Ann Arbor, or Detroit where I could eat at The Blue Nile) The Queen oif Sheba cooks up some of the worst Ethiopian food I've tried. Entirely too sour on the greens as if vinegar or worse - lemon juice from concentrate? Citric acid powder? - had been added to an already pungent mustard green - fresh lemon juice used judiciously would have been much more palatable. The injera was cooked perfectly and was as sour as it should be. The potato/ carrot/ bean dish was lacking in a spice I can't quite place... but when it is missing - the dish is lack lustre. Finally the house special chickpea pancake in bebere sauce was dry, under sauced - inedible with injera or a fork, a bummer. I wrote this review to remind myself of why I don't eat here but every 12 years... because I keep forgetting how horrid the food is!!! Now this will pop up when I search later... and help me avoid gross food. Go eat at any other Ethiopian place in Portland... especially now that Jarras finally went out of...

When a place of business says they open at 5 PM you expect the doors to be unlocked and for someone to be there to greet you. When we arrived, The door was locked. We waited for a few minutes to see if anyone would come out then we called and a very rude woman told us she wasn’t ready to open and hung up on us so as we sat there in the cold trying to decide where we were going to go to have dinner. She finally comes to the door and her energy was just bad… Like how dare you show up to my place of business at the time I say I’m going to open it and expect it to actually be open???? In any case I will not be back and I’m very disappointed as I was really looking forward to trying Ethiopian Food for the first time. Customer service is part of owning your small business and if you can’t provide...

Been trying to expand my culinary horizons and with some encouragement from friends, decided to try Ethiopian cuisine. A search on the Internet showed Queen of Sheba as one of the best Ethiopian restaurants in Portland. So, we gave it a try and weren't disappointed. The restaurant is small and somewhat dark which made reading the menu a challange. My wife and I ordered the vegetarian sampler for 2 which included a nice variety of ten mildly spicy options placed on top of injera bread on a large platter. It took a little practice using the injera bread to scoop up the food and get it into my mouth without dropping it. But,that made the experience feel much more authentic. The food had good flavor and I think next time I need to try one of the meat dishes with the spicier...