Addis Ababa

I went to tthis place because of Groupon and I truly regret that purchase. I wish I could give this place a ZERO star. The service was very poor, the food was mediocre and they took my change at the end and claimed they didn’t have any change. I’m surprised they’re still in business. STAY AWAY FROM THAT PLACE.

On November 7, 2015 at 8:32pm, my family and I were dining at the Addis Ababa Restaurant, located at 8233 Fenton St, Silver Spring, MD 20 993. During the course of our meal our oldest daughter, after consuming her first bite of food, began experiencing shortness of breath and chest pains. In response, 911 was contacted, while we were awaiting their arrival, we offered our daughter first aid treatment.
Upon arrival of the ambulance, we were advised by the paramedics to ask for the ingredients of the food our daughter consumed. After the ambulance departed with my wife and daughter to Holy Cross Hospital, I went back inside the establishment for information on the ingredients in the food we ordered. In return, I was provided with a copy of the receipt and a menu. I asked a second time for a detailed list, not general, of the ingredients given the emergency circumstance at hand, however no one sought to fulfill my request. After becoming frustrated with their lack of concern and interest in the wellbeing of my child, I departed the establishment. The food was packaged and brought along with me to the hospital so that I and/​or hospital personnel could assist with diagnosing the cause of my daughter’s condition.
Once I arrived at the hospital, I was informed that my daughter condition had stabilized, but was caused by ingredients in the food. Thankfully, our daughter condition continued to improve and she was eventually released from the hospital. After arriving home I reached out to Addis Ababa management and was taken aback by the rudeness, complete lack of regard and concern for our daughter’s condition, but most shockingly, failure to answer a simple questions of ingredients in their ethnic meals. Furthermore, not to my surprise, management failed to offer any form of discount or refund. Addis Ababa restaurant has clearly demonstrated no regard for the care and concern of its customers shockingly this includes children. Clearly this establishment is motivated solely for monetary gain without any regards for moral and ethical values; even during a emergency situation in their establishment.

Great food, authentic environment, friendly service. Took my parents here for their first Ethiopian experience and successfully converted their palettes!

Delicious food! Served on injera bread with a hint of spiciness. Nice themed décor too. Prices are reasonable as well.

I brought a groupon deal ($ 9 for $ 20) and I came here last night with my friend, who’s Ethiopian for dinner. It wasn’t crowded but there were a few patrons at tables and some guys at the bar. The lighting was dim but not so much that you couldn’t see – perfect for a date. The waitress was polite and attentive. I got the beyaynetu platter, which you get a choice of five vegetarian options (I got the tikil gomen, gomen, yatakilt wat, mesir wat and kit alicha). I also got the lentil sambusa. My friend got the awaze tibs. Overall, I enjoyed the platter – my most favorite was the yatakilt wat; the gomen was tad bit on the bland side. I also liked the lentil sambusa – nice and flaky. My friend thought the tibs were just okay. I thought the price was right even without a groupon deal. I would definitely go back – groupon or no groupon.

We knew it was a good sign when we walked in and saw we were the only non-​Ethiopians in the place! Great veggie combo, though slightly oily. Still, the flavors were good. I’m gonna mess up the names, but loved the gomen, lentils, yellow peas, collards. My boyfriend was a fan of the spicy red lentils. Wish they had actual glasses instead of plastic cups, but other than that, no complaints. Tasty authentic Ethiopian food!

I was introduced to this place from Groupon. The first time was so good that when another Groupon deal popped up, I bought it again!
The combination platters are a great deal if you don’t really know individual entrees to order. My favorite is the tikil gomen, and the doro wat comes at a close second. There is such intense and savory flavor to everything, and I’ve left the restaurant super full but extremely satisfied.
Try the honey wine! It is sweet and refreshing! Now I just need to research where I can buy bottles of that stuff.

We bought a Groupon and went out to lunch with some friends. When we arrived, we thought for a second it was closed, no one was in the dining room, just empty tables and a thick cloud of incense smoke. I called someone out of the kitchen with an awkward «Hello?, and things improved from there.
We sat inside along the street windows around a basket/​table that fits one of their platters for 4 perfectly. We had platter #1 — two kinds of lamb stew, doro wat (Chicken with a hard-​coiled egg), and gomen. Served with a generous helping of injera, each stew was very tasty, and it was a very social way to eat, all sharing one platter.
We had juice alongside our meal, and the food was pretty tasty. You can find nicer Ethiopian restaurants, but with the incense and the special table and platters, it really did feel like a foreign experience. The dining room filled up while we were there and it was much more lively by the time we left. No rush to go back, but I wouldn’t specifically avoid it.

I LOVE this place. It’s so warm and cozy inside with great chairs and tables to make you feel as if you’ve just hopped a plane to Ethiopia. They have some great shared platters that are reasonably priced for as little as 2 guests.

I’m surprised by a number of the less favorable reviews. I normally don’t review restaurants unless there’s a *really* good reason, and the reasons for this one are the injera and the doro wat.
I’ve been to maybe 20 Ethiopian places across the country, and this spot has my favorite injera, which is saying a lot. It’s tangier than others, with the perfect amount of moisture. Three thumbs up.
Similarly, the doro wat is just phenomenal. Not too oily, perfectly spiced, abundant. For an item that some say is Ethiopia’s national dish, it’s a big deal that Addis Ababa is better than the rest.
As for the service etc etc, you can be guaranteed that the waitstaff is super friendly. Otherwise, you can’t be uptight. Remember, you’re about to eat with your hands.

We had an absolutely fantastic meal here. Highly recommended! We tried the raw beef and it was great, better than the cooked version in fact.

Fantastic Ethiopian Food!!! very nice people and wonderful food! not my fav in silver spring but walking distance from home and work :) great place!

After a day long trip in DC, my friends were ready to head into Silver Spring for a filling dinner. We bought platters 1, 2, and 3 for a group of 8 and we were all stuffed at the end! Great combinations of spicy and mild all on a spongey injera plate. My favorite part was that each plate had a chicken leg and hardboiled egg covered in spice. I definitely recommend coming with friends, this is an experience worth sharing.

Alright, so I’m just going come out with it. Someone was smoking pot at the bar while we were eating dinner. It’s not a large place and the bar is just off to one side of the room so it was well evident throughout the room. We clearly weren’t the only ones who noticed either. I don’t even really know what to say but as a self-​professed anti-​smoking nazi, I find any smoking indoors unacceptable and it’s doubly unacceptable to be forcibly exposed to something illegal you would not choose for yourself.
Now for the food. The beef sambusas had a good flavor, very spicy, but were frozen in the middle. Yum, icy-​hot for your mouth! The doro wat was good, oily, but good. My friend had the awaze tibs and didn’t eat much of it. I thought it wasn’t bad but the meat was really tough and chewy. We also had the mesir wat as a side and it was my favorite.
So there you have it.

Came here with a groupon and a group of 4 girlfriends. Three of us are adventurous eaters, the other two… not so much. But everyone really liked everything on the combination platter we got, except for the kifto. The texture was a little too odd for our taste. The Doro wat (chicken stew with egg) was phenomenal, as well as the Addis Ababa tibs and the yellow split peas. Couldn’t help scooping up every last bit of those!
Service, however, was really slow. Price wasn’t that great either.

I don’t know my ethiopian food that well, but I’ve had some before… so I can make a comparison for an outsider? lol. The food was good here… I’m not even going to try to name the items on the menu that I ordered… sorry. This is a late review, so I sort of forgot what I ordered… but I think it was tibs, some kind of lamb, and chicken with tomatoes diced up. The spices were wonderful. A little salty, but that’s how I like it!
Side note, I asked the waitress what I should get based on what most people order, and I don’t think she understood me, lol. She just explained what each item was, and said each was good… Thanks, hahah. Also, I know I have to eat with my hands… but I mean, could we at least get napkins? I don’t need the full ethiopian experience here! I’d like to wipe my hands and mouth every now and then. Other than that though, waitress was real friendly.

We went here for dinner and enjoyed the whole experience. The place doesn’t look like anything special from the outside, but the atmosphere inside is nice. It’s easy to park on the street in front of the restaurant, and there’s also a public parking lot across the street. Our waitress was very friendly and attentive, and kept our basket of injera full without us having to ask. For our entrees, we ordered the doro wat and the vegetarian combo. The doro wat was excellent. We had a choice of getting it spicy or mild. We chose the spicy version, and it was just spicy enough, without being too hot. The veggie combo was great, as well. My favorite entrees in the combo were the gomen (collard greens), yatakilt wat (green beans, potatoes, carrots, and peppers), and the tikil gomen (cabbage with onions and peppers). The lentil entrees were good, too, but not as flavorful. The food here is just as good as the more expensive Etete in DC, and it’s more comfortable inside and easier to get to. I’ll be back!

My friends and I love Ethiopian. Normally we wouldn’t come here but was swayed by the 50% deal on foursquare.
The pros:
–During the meal, the waitress would ask how the food was, etc…
–Good vibes: totally feeling the décor and music they had on. It was super relaxed, which was great.
–Serving sizes were awesome. We came here with 4 people but ordered 3 dishes and we were all struggling to finish it.
The cons:
–While the waitress did ask how the food was, getting the check was a pain. We must have waited for 15 minutes even after asking at least 2 times for it.
–Manager gave us a hard time with the foursquare check in. The «claim» page wasn’t opening up for me on my phone (he saw the 50% off deal on my phone, the claim was just the next step). We thought ok, maybe there’s a barcode on the claim page which was why he was giving us a hard time. Nope, opened it up on my friend’s phone he took a look and said ok.
The food:
We ordered tibs, kitfo, and the cabbage veggies.
The kitfo was awesome. Serving size was amazing.
The tibs were not as ‘crunchy’ as we expected it to be. Normally my friends and I love it to be a little hard. This was sort of just… soft and chewy.
The cabbages were not well done enough. It was a bit difficult to chew on, normally we like that soft. The seasoning was good, though.
Overall, I would probably come back for the kitfo. But for everything else, I would go somewhere else.

Liked the food, but the price of doro wat was exorbitant for portion sized. Stick to the vegetarian platter for 2.
Note: if your use a daily deal, they will charge you 18% tax and add it to the bill before the optional gratuity. So, there’s a fair chance your meal will either be more expensive with the coupon or you will only save a few pennies. It’s hard not to take this as a «gotcha,» perhaps a ploy to stick it to previous customers who did not tip on the before-​discount meal price. Comes across as trying to be crafty with customers, detracting from the experience. Tit-​for-​tat with customers ends poorly for everyone, and I hope the restaurant amends it’s ways. That’s the only way I’d return with so many other choices in the city.

So this was my second Ethiopian restaurant experience and I’m glad I tried it again! This time I came with two girl friends, my Eritrean choose this place to show us good food. She was right! Ive been to this one Ethiopian place in Burtonsville with my two asian sisters and was disappointed by the lack of flavor. I wonder if I came here with non Habeshas would we have gotten the yummy flavorful food. oh well.
The three of us were very hungry and ready to eat. We ordered one lentil sambusa and one beef sambusa and the combo/​platter #1 for three people. Everything was delicious! The sambusas were very flavorful, the beef was pretty spicy but tasted really good. We had chicken in red stew, lamb in red stew, lamb in this white yellow stew and greens that looked like collard greens. The red lamb stew had a very strong. cinnamon or some sort of nutty taste that my friend didnt like. It was strong but it was okay to me. The chicken stew was yummy and had three hard boiled eggs for the three of us. My friend, who didnt care for the red lamb stew, loved this chicken stew. I really liked the light colored lamb stew. It was spicy and a tad sweet.
Compared to the other place I went to I was expecting something bland. We demolished the meal and quickly regretted eating aaaaaallllll that food even though it was really tasty. The three person combo is more than enough for three girls.
We also ordered the honey wine, my friend thought it was going to be the house made strong authentic wine but was a little disappointed that it was packaged and bottled from Indiana. The wine was alright, it was light, sweet and easy to drink. It didnt taste too special to any of us but it was fine. This place was a good second chance for me and Ethiopian food. I will definitely come back here and probably try other places around downtown Silver Spring (little Ethiopia lol– I didnt know this till we took a walk around the block after out huge meal and saw a million restaurants). Oh, the servers. are pretty slow but I was told this is what you get at Ethiopian restarants. The owner/​manager was very nice and helpful though. And it was pretty busy on a Tuesday night.