Addi’s Restaurant

2750 Cleveland Ave.
Columbus OH 43224
614.269.8680
website

While it doesn’t look like much from the outside, Addi’s Restaurant in Columbus in fact offers a taste of cuisine not often seen in Ohio; offering Ethiopian food, with the local Ethiopian population congregating around the restaurant and its take on traditional Ethiopian cuisine. While the food isn’t half bad, the spot does seem like it could use a bit of an update on the outside. On the inside, it does seem to need some tweaks to make it a more approachable place. There’s a lot of people here who have never had Ethiopian food.

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As Ethiopian food goes, each thing that you order is served on a flatbread-like base called injera, and surrounded by about half a dozen different side dishes including lentils, salad, cabbage and some other things. Some of the good main courses:

• Mahbarawi: This dish is technically a kind of tibs, or a meaty, stir-fry stew. Marinated beef with peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and a mix of spices. A very spicy stew like this is good with some of those side lentils and veggies to mellow it out. But it’s delicious.
• Doro Wot: Chicken stew simmered in a berbere spice mix until it is very spicy, and then served with a drumstick. It’s got a great texture. This one is very, very spicy! Which you don’t get a lot of warning for.
• Ethiopian coffee: In fact a much more elemental form of coffee than you can try at many American shops, a warning that this coffee is very, very strong.

The food is good, but it would help if there was some kind of better translation of the dishes for people who are not familiar with how to eat them. Ethiopian food is very, very spicy compared to American tastes, and you don’t get a lot of warning with it once you order, and so that can be a bit of a surprise. When much of the population in the area doesn’t have that knowledge, it would make the experience much more clear.

I also had an experience where myself and my party became sick after eating here. A big turn off.

It could use a few things to brighten the place up, but there is definitely a potential in this restaurant. It has good food and offers things not a lot of other places in this part of the country.

Recommendations

• Keep in mind that the food is very spicy by default. While you find those dishes are a lot like the authentic Ethiopian experience, it’ll be a shock if you’re new to the food.
• The coffee here is very good, but strong!
• I highly recommend this as a place where you bring a small group of people. You’ll find the dishes are good to share.