Addis Red Sea, Boston, Massachusetts, African Restaurant Details

Food:

Authentic tasting and feeling Ethiopian food that provides a very unique dining experience.

Food:

They've always been friendly at my many times eating at Addis. I love the Doro Alcha chicken with the brown Teff sponge bread. The combination dishes are generally the way to go, since (sadly!) the portion size on the individual dishes is quite small. Love the place though.

5th visit. Doro Alcha chicken was great but is still a small portion when ordered solo. That and The vegetarian platter are a good portion for two people. The cottage Cheese appetizer was fantastic! The pureed lentils were amazing but are better ordered not spicy. The tomato salad is phenomenal. The tea is delicious.

Food:

Overall: Okay, Service: Not good!, Kid Friendly: Totally not!

-Takes a long (more than 30 minutes) time to receive the food after you place the order. We visited on Sunday evening. There was hardly any customer so its not like they had lots of requests or anything.
-Totally Kid Unfriendly. Did not have plastic cups for kids. We asked the waiter for plastic cups, because kids might land up breaking a glass mug. He said no problem. He then asked us,"do they do the same at home?" Of course he does not have experience with kids :)
-Restrooms were not pleasant. Locks from inside were questionable if they worked :( One has got to go downstairs for restrooms. This can be an issue if you have anyone with disability or older person who cannot probably walk up and down to go to the rest room. This wasn't a case with us but good to know. There was also something stinking downstairs near rest rooms!
-This restaurant has a strange policy they mention on their menu card. This is that if you don't order enough for party of X. (Meaning say X entrees for X people). then they charge you extra $7 for a shared dish. This is really bad! Many a times you would have people in your party for e.g. children or anyone with not so great appetite and you would not want to order too much anyway. And its not like we order a Buffett. For Buffett it would be understandable, if restaurant says that one must order as many as there are people in your party. For us, this was not a problem because we did land up ordering as many entrees as adults in our party. However, I clarified their rule before we ordered because we had two kids with us. We generally don't order any individual dishes for kids unless we know they are super hungry and they are going to eat what we order. Otherwise it really goes waste.
In case, watch out for this rule and if you go there,clarify before you order.
-Their cash register was not working. However they tell us this only in the end at the time of billing. The lady said to us, sorry, our system is not working so cash only please. I had to go out to the ATM to get cash.
-Can you believe the lady asked for the tip! As I come back from ATM I went to pay at the cash counter. I was thinking of leaving the tip in their basket before leaving so paid the lady only the total amount. I could not believe the lady asked me "And the tip?" I understand I would be expected to leave the tip. But if I am not happy I may choose not to tip either. In either case I was going to leave the tip in the basket but did not expect her to outright ask me for the tip. I told her well I was thinking of leaving it in the basket. Since she asked I paid her right there.

Positive: FOOD was really tasty !

Its only for the FOOD that I gave this restaurant 3 stars. Otherwise I would have given zero or 1 star. Throughout the time we were there, there was no one paying attention to the customers. Ladies at the cash counter were busy on their cell phones all the time!

Bottom line: If you don't care for service and kid friendliness then visit this place as their food is really nice. But otherwise its all thumbs down!

Food:

There is nothing to like about this restaurant. It was smelly and the carpet was filthy. I will never go back or recommend to anyone. I regrey going to that place...awful service and terrible food!!

Food:

Simply great food in such a warm and exotic ambiance. Love the utensil free authentic dining experience.
The injeras and meat are excellent. Try the meat or vegetarian sampler for two if you do It can get very busy, not a quick bite place for sure! long, long wait.
Servers may not speak your language, so try not to judge.
Zagat featured and reasonably priced delicious Ethiopian food in Boston.