Addis Ethiopian Restaurant

[MsMelkor]

Melkor and I had to run an errand in Oakland this afternoon, so we figured we'd stay in the area for an early dinner at Addis, an Ethiopian restaurant on Telegraph (just south of Alcatraz). We'd never been to this place before, but it looked suitably down-to-earth and fairly busy. As neither of us are experts in Ethiopian cuisine, we ordered the Addis combination, an enormous platter of three meat and four vegetarian dishes, served with a stack of injera (flat bread made from teff).

On the left side are the vegetarian dishes: alicha denich (carrots and potatoes in a mild garlic-butter sauce), yemeser wot (lentils in a berbere sauce), ater kik (yellow split peas with onions and garlic), gomen (collard greens), and lab (white cured cheese). On the right are: yesega wot (beef cubes in berbere sauce), yesega alicha (beef cubes in a mild garlic-butter sauce), and yedoro wot (chicken drumstick and hard-boiled egg in berbere sauce). In the middle is a salad with tomatoes (seemed a bit random - perhaps it's there to help diners eat the USDA-recommended 9 servings/day of fruit and veggies?).

The heat in the berbere sauce never overpowered the flavors of the other ingredients, but it did intensify at the end of each bite, making the slightly sour and starchy injera a necessary counterbalance. The alicha dishes were much lighter in flavor - this seemed to work much better with the beef than the carrots and potatoes, which were a bit on the bland side.

This combination platter, $18.99, is supposed to serve two, but could have easily fed three.

As you may know, there are a bunch of other Ethiopian restaurants on Telegraph and around Berkeley/Oakland. Has anyone else eaten here, or at another Ethiopian place in the area?

[plk]

When I lived in the Bay Area, I used to love to go there! It's so good and really spoiled me for good Ethiopian food. I think beef tibs is my favorite meat dish, so I always try to make sure that's included in whatever I order. It's usual to have a small salad in the middle, which nicely ofsets some of the heat when you eat it with the spicy meat. I've had some decent stuff in Sacramento, but nothing that's compared to Addis in Oakland.

There's a similarly named place in Sacramento: Addis Ababa (it's named for the city in Ethiopia and doesn't imply that the same people own the place in Oakland), and they will actually sell you teff flour and lentils. When we were at the Sac resturaunt and asked how they made the injera, they even let us go back in the kitchen with them and showed us how to do it! And, they sent us away with some injera starter. And now, Ethiopian lentils is a regular dinner staple for us. In fact, I just made some last night.

[Hest88]

Our favorite in that stretch is Colucci Cafe. We haven't done much of a taste test of the others, though.

[chefzadi]

In Los Angeles on Fairfax Blvd there is an Ethiopian row of restaurants along with other Ethipian businesses.

I could never get used to the bread though, injera. I just don't like the texture.

[MsMelkor]

Our favorite in that stretch is Colucci Cafe. We haven't done much of a taste test of the others, though.

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A friend tried to give us directions to what turned out to be Colucci (but she didn't know the name) and we ended up at Addis. It would be interesting to see what the differences are among the Ethiopian restaurants in this area.

[merle]

A friend tried to give us directions to what turned out to be Colucci (but she didn't know the name) and we ended up at Addis. It would be interesting to see what the differences are among the Ethiopian restaurants in this area.

Katya, on another board, commented on a bunch of them. Here's

Blue Nile (along with her ratings).