Fat Kid Adventure #77: Addis Ethiopian Cuisine (San Jose)

(Originally posted on July 13, 2008)

Oh whaaaaaaat? 2 in a row? YAY-YA! This Ethiopian joint is actually Zeni's injera supplier; however, supplying injera may unfortunately be where the goodness stops. Located in the same neighborhood as Zeni and Selam, Addis is a newly opened joint near Hamilton and San Tomas and is also in a strip mall - what's with these Ethiopian restaurants and strip malls?

The venue is tiny - 6 tables in total with a small kitchen. Atmosphere is not very traditional. When we walked in and asked for a table for 2, the server was semi-surprised and said, "this is Ethiopian food." We were thinking, "aaaaaaaand?" Pssssh lady didn't know about us - we are EthioLovas! Anyway, we ignored that and proceeded to look through the short menu. Here is a summary of this little adventure:

PROS:
- They make their business on selling injera. As Rar and I ate, we heard tons of calls and saw numerous pickups of injera.
- Also, the injera is actually soft and a bit BETTER than Zeni's.
- The alicha atkilt was pretty good.
- Finally, the miser wot (red lentils) were pretty damn good - better than Zeni's because it was chunky and you can tell there's a lot of substance.

CONS:
- We signaled to one of 2 ladies in the restaurant that we were ready to order. She was on the phone, and she slowly walked over to us as she continued her convo. She was 5 feet away on our table, stopped to continue her convo for another five minutes. After she was done, she went to the other lady to tell her to take our order. What the hell??? You coulda done that on the phone in the first place!
- They ran out of chicken, so we could not get chicken tibs firfir. It was like almost 2 hours until closing - how do you already not have any chicken??
- We ordered the vegeterian combo - miser wot + gomen wot + kik wot + alicha atkilt. When the order arrived, it was placed in 4 piles but two piles were alicha atkilt - we did not get kik wot. Y'all tryina play us??? Tryina make it look like all four items were there?? Oh hell naw. We mentioned it to the lady that took our order, who asked the lady that cooked, and finally told us that they ran out. Sigh.
- The order also came with a small sample of beef tibs firfir, because the server felt that we were disappointed since there was no chicken. Except the sample was actually lamb, and I am semi-allergic to lamb. Took one bite and almost had to spit it out. How do you get that wrong??? Tryina punk us again??
- Gomen wot was dry.

As you can see - many CONS, little PROS. In the end, the little bit of saving grace for Addis was the fact that the server admitted that there had been many mistakes for our order and that it just was not her day. At least she admits it. I am sure Addis has seen better days, but from this experience both Rar and I have to go against recommending it. At least we know where to come to buy injera if we need it.

http://www.addisethiopiancuisine.com/menu.html
http://www.yelp.com/biz/addis-ethiopian-cuisine-campbell