Queen Sheba

Ethiopian food can make for a unique dining experience if you’ve never had it before. Several kinds of spicy stews and vegetable dishes are served on top of a spongy, crêpe-​like bread called injera. The taste of injera is similar to sourdough, and the tanginess of the bread offers a nice contrast to the rich and spicy stews. The food is meant to be eaten family style with everyone eating off of one large tray-​sized piece of injera piled with different stews. To eat, you tear off pieces of the injera and use it to pick up bites of food with your hands sans utensils, kind of like you’d tear off pieces of tortilla to eat fajitas. At the end, you can also eat the injera that your food has been sitting on, which has absorbed all the delicious juices from the stews.
If you’ve followed the review this far, you’re probably wondering how such a dining experience would work in Japan, where different kinds of food are typically separated into different bowls and plates so they don’t end up mixing, and touching food directly with one’s hands is pretty unheard of.
I think that because of this, Queen Sheba serves the individual components of the meal Japanese-​style in separate bowls by default and gives diners a small plate to spoon their food onto as well as utensils. I was kind of disappointed by this the first time I came to Queen Sheba, as I’m used to eating Ethiopian food family-​style with my hands. I also found the spices a bit lacking, perhaps due to toning down the spiciness of the dishes for a Japanese audience.
It took me over a year to visit again, but Queen Sheba is basically the only Ethiopian restaurant in Tokyo, so I decided to give it another shot. The second time I came back, I asked if we could have our food served family style and the server (owner?) was happy to oblige. The spices in the stews were excellent the second time around, and everything tasted delicious, so I was actually really happy I decided to try it again.
When I rate Queen Sheba against Ethiopian restaurants that I’ve been to in other cities, it ranks pretty firmly in the middle. The food is delicious, but the portion sizes are a bit smaller than I’m used to. (Then again, I usually can’t stop eating injera and tend to walk away from Ethiopian restaurants feeling uncomfortably full, so maybe the smaller portion size is for the best.) I also found the price a bit expensive at ¥2700 per person for the basic dinner set (with a minimum order of 2 people) when compared to the portion size, but that’s probably due to the difficulty of getting the necessary ingredients in Japan (as well as the cost of operating what must be a very niche-​restaurant).
Still, Queen Sheba does an excellent job of offering an Ethiopian dining experience in a country where there isn’t much demand for it.
First visit: 3 stars
Second visit: 4.5 stars
Average: a very solid 4 stars, and a recommendation that you try it at least once (and ask that your food be served family style!)