D’Afrique Restaurant & Bar

So my co-​workers and I were feeling adventurous one night and decided to try Ethiopian food for the first time. I see other reviews saying they tried the combination platters, and now that I think about it, maybe we should be tried those. But again, we were feeling adventurous and wanted an authentic experience, so we each ordered an entrée which came with injera, this like really interesting bread-​like thing. I don’t eat spicy food, so the waitress/​owner recommended the alicha wat (beef cubes simmered in a mildly spiced stew.) One of my coworkers got pretty much the same thing except with lamb, and my other coworker ordered the kitfo, which is supposed to be like beef tartare and is served raw.
Basically when you order the dish, it comes served on a round platter with the injera (it looks like pita bread but is spongier and looks like it’s covered with holes) and then on top is a little handful of whatever kind of meat you ordered. You are supposed to eat it with your hands, so you rip off some of the injera and try to wrap it around the meat and eat it like that. It was definitely a really interesting and unique experience, albeit pretty messy. I actually thought the beef I ordered was pretty good — it was similar to yellow curry but wasn’t spicy at all, and the beef was really really tender and just fell off the bone pretty much. The injera is really something different and I think is an acquired taste. It’s really quite sour… I was okay eating this with the meat, but I don’t think I could eat it on its own.
My coworker who got the kitfo didn’t really enjoy it unfortunately… I tried a bit and I can kind of see why. The concept is similar to tartare, which I love, but the flavours were really different, I guess because of the specific spices and ingredients they mix in there. I also wasn’t a huge fan, but I thought it was cool to try.
Because it’s a pretty small, owner-​managed restaurant, we found the service to be really slow, as we waited a looooong time for our food to come (and we were really hungry at the time.) However, the owners of the restaurant were really nice and kept checking up on us later on in the meal to see if we were liking our food. They offered to cook my coworker’s kitfo (it normally comes served raw) to see if she would enjoy it more that way, but unfortunately she couldn’t get over the taste. It was a nice gesture on the owners’ parts though, and in the end they took the entire cost off her bill, which was so nice. Also when my other coworker and I had injera left over and no more meat, they came around and scooped more meat onto our plates: D
Personally, I don’t think Ethiopian food is really my cup of tea, but I think this is a cool establishment if you want to try a different type of food, and I do think you get a pretty authentic experience here. They have another area of the restaurant which is filled with what I assume to be Ethiopian furniture and décor, so it would be cool to eat there.

I’m a fan of Ethiopian food, and I was thrilled to have another location downtown (other Ethiopian places are the Horn of Africa and the Blue Nile.)
I was not disappointed. The food was very good. I recommend the combination platter. It was a while ago, so I can’t remember specifics, but I’ll be back. I prefer it slightly over the Blue Nile, and I think it was about as good as the Horn of Africa.

This was my first time eating Ethiopian food and it was great. My husband and I were in Ottawa for New Years and we were getting desperate to find dinner New Year’s Day. Luckily, we happened upon this place. The staff were super helpful and attentive. Because we both had never had this type of cuisine, we were guided to the D’African and vegetarian platters to try a little of everything. You do have to eat with your hands but it was totally fun to figure out how to use the teff bread to eat. It was a great experience with really good food. We left happily full. We’ll be checking out Ethiopian places near us when we get back home.