Dahlak

Came here with a huge club of 60 people for fundraising (20% of the proceeds go to your school club). The staff was absolutely wonderful. Very kind and patient with us, despite all the confusion about ordering food and paying bills (our fault, not theirs). Food was okay, but service was top-​notch. The woman (who seemed to own the place) was so kind and sweet!

I’m amazed to see reviews complaining that the food here is tasteless. I’ve never had a bad meal. I’m a vegetarian so I can’t speak to the meat dishes. Just polished off a vegetarian combo of spicy lentils, kale and spicy okra. Great seasoning and a fair amount of heat. Delish!

The food here is amazing however, as they became more popular over the years, they’ve scaled back on the portions and raised the prices. I’m have diabetes so I can’t fill up on injera to get through my meal. Otherwise, Dahlak is the best of the Ethiopian/​Eritrean restaurants in the city.

The reviews for Dahlak had been really good, so my wife and I had pretty high expectations but we weren’t disappointed at all! The ambience is really nice, with Eritrean-​style seating on little stools around the table, and the food is delicious. We had a Sambussa to begin with, which tastes exactly like Indian samosas. Then we got adventurous and tried a jalapeño stuffed with tomatoes (can’t recall its name) which was super-​spicy even by our standards, so beware! For the entrees, we had a shrimp with berber sauce and tilapia with berber sauce, both served with injera of course. The shrimp was excellent!
The service is also very good: our waitress was friendly and the food arrived pretty quickly too. They also have a well-​stocked bar with very affordable drinks.
Definitely one of the best restaurants around this area!

Cute place, nice flavors
If you are already accustomed to «ethnic» flavors, this is a dope little spot, go when the big homie, Carmen is working (we went on a Monday night). Our order was the spicy fish (too fishy) curry lamb (slamming, must have) and lentil spiced samossas (loved!!) house wine is solid to keep the food vibes rolling. Will prob return as quick seasoned neighborhood eats, but nothing spectacular, cept CARMEN ;)

A former friend of mine brought me here back in early Spring. We were cruising around trying to find someplace to go for drinks. He pulled up in some random parking lot and I’m giving the side eye because I don’t see a bar or restaurant. :Thinks to self. Ehhh where we going buddy:. We start walking up and I see people. :Sigh of relief… Looks like I won’t be the next person snatched off the street on a first date:. There’s a small sign that says Dahlak and to my delight, there’s an outside patio situation in the back. I ask the bartender if they had the Citywide Special and she kind of shrugged and said Well it’s not really a special, just a shot of Jim Beam and any a domestic beer for $ 6.ehhh, ma’am. The «Special» I’m used to is around $ 3(insert plug for Bob and Barbaras here). Anyway, I order a Jack n Coke instead. Wasn’t the greatest I’ve ever had but I sure as hell tasted my good old buddy Jack in there. Went outside because we wanted to light one up. Cigarettes that is. Well for me anyway. The aroma of other «plants» were making their way into my nostrils lol.
The crowd is University City/​Clark Park /​Spruce Hill/​insert some other gentrified name of West Philly in here /​hipster ish. But not, I paid $ 100 for my «vintage shirt» from Urban Outfitters to look like a starving artist. More like, this is who I am and you can do two things about my wild hair, black nail polish and Vans. Nothing and like it. I love Dahlak. Folks are friendly but not intrusive. Easy to spark up a conversation here. Sunday nights in the restaurant area, there’s open mic and live bands from time to time. Quit reading and get there. Courtesy of me of course.

Great neighborhood bar and restaurant in West Philly. Daily specials everyday, excellent service and a friendly welcoming environment.

Great prices. Injera bread great. I liked the lamb dish but it had lots of tiny bones. The raw beef was good too. Service was a bit slow.

Paint Party in the rear patio of Dahlak Paradise Ethiopian Restaurant & Bar 4708 Baltimore Ave. Phila., PA 19 143 Wednesday, August 12^th from 6pm-​8pm. Sign-​up includes happy hour drink specials, 20% off your meal, acrylic paints, step by step instructions from two professional artists, and a 12″ canvas for you to take home. If it rains we’ll host the party inside. There are a limited number to table easels available. Please RSVP early and arrive time. Purchase tickets at:

Arrived at restaurant and were seated quickly. Only received 2 napkins and 3 menus for our 4 person party. Food took VERY long to come and an order was mixed up. Food was pretty good, would recommend diced chicken dish.

I’d never had Ethiopian or Eritrean food before. Shared the veggie combo for two with two friends — spinach, mushrooms, and lentils — and a lamb dish with another. I enjoyed it, especially the fluffy inerja flatbread, but felt surely the dishes were supposed to have a little more flavor? Surely the veggie servings could have been a bit less skimpy? The mushrooms and meat definitely could have been cooked to slightly more luscious textures. They were also out of two of the beers we ordered off of their drink menu, which was a bit disappointing, so we stuck to the basics after that.
Overall, though, we enjoyed ourselves. The ambiance was nice, both inside and out. We were seated on the patio, which was full of grungy West Philly hipsters that I enjoyed covertly people-​watching and which complimented the slight grunge of the patio. The service was pretty quick and after I almost immediately drained my first glass of water, the server brought us a pitcher without even asking so we never ran out again. I’d be happy to go again and try some other dishes.

Great Eritrean food; good price; nice speakeasy in the back

Eat in a group with friends. No utensils!!! Your mom wasn’t always right. sometimes it is fun to eat with your hands. Be patient, the kitchen is busy. Best kept secret in the neighborhood is the little outdoor beer-​garden in the back

I’m going to rank this one. Although the ambiance is very neat, the food is entirely unacceptable and if you like Ethiopian food I can be no fairer to you than a ranking of «1». No flavor at all. The textures are fine, but without flavor this is just stewed meat and ground beans. They butchered the whole meal, but I was especially sad about the Mitten Shouro.
If you want a place nearby that has much better food, but lacks in ambiance and has a limited menu, try Queen of Sheeba. If you are looking for a nice ambiance with pretty decent acceptable food try Abyssinia.

Not good at all. Went there and got the veggie combo platter. One of the dishes was a spinach dish that literally tasted like frozen chopped spinach… No sauce or flavor just literally a mouthful of frozen chopped spinach that was lukewarm. The other veggies didn’t taste fresh and the «mild» sauce was spicy. The injera bread was the worst I’ve ever had. Save your money and go somewhere else.

Hey. Be careful. The roaches have no shame. We ordered a combination platter. And as we were just getting the food and about to eat. The visitors came out to join us. There was not one but two roaches. One went to get a drink of my water and the other decided to join the party. And sorry but I don’t share with bugs. Let em have it.

A crowd of rough-​looking travelers are milling about on Baltimore Avenue, a little frantically, having just been disgorged from Dahlak. A favorite of unfussy locals and petty criminals, the back patio has the ambiance of a Brussels hostel far from the city center.
«Is the bar still open?» one of the travelers asks against all odds. It’s half past two.
I ask a lanky blonde boy with a large pack where he’s traveling to. He shifts the pack uncomfortably. «Here,» he says.
My friend and I return to our conversation.
We watch with mild interest as the travelers bounce forced cheer off of each other, trying to get something going. Their night is far from over.
«Where are you coming from?» my friend asks the traveler, trying a different tack. After a beat, he says: «Jail. The hospital. New Jersey.»
Three lines, very succinct. Could be a poet. My friend and I exchange nods, satisfied.
«Not in that order,» he adds, before vanishing.

I had a pretty good meal at Dahlak. The service wasn’t as bad as many of the other reviews indicate, but it wasn’t great, & there was a guy at the next table who was incredibly loud & annoying, though that’s not the fault of the restaurant. We sat outside, which was nice, though inside was a lot cuter & I feel like places with outdoor seating should work really hard to keep their patios super clean. They wiped down our table, but even my chair was kind of grody.
The biggest disappointment, though, is the fact that their combo only has 3 options. As opposed to Almaz which has like 7 options in the combo. Also, I like Almaz’ flavors better. I felt like the flavors of all 3 of my items were basically the same at Dahlak.
I’d maybe go here again if I’m in West Philly, because yay for vegan friendly, but there are many other places to try for good Ethiopian food.

Dahlak is great on 2 fronts.
When you want a legit Ethiopian meal, this is where to go. Their injera is great. It’s nice and tangy and they always serve a lot of it with the food so you’re never wishing that they had given you more. The vegetarian options are all really tasty. The tibs are my favorite, but anything I’ve gotten has been really good.
Dahlak also has an amazing little outdoor seating area in the back with a bar. The drinks are pretty cheap and strong, and the vibe is really chill. This was my go to spot when I worked in the area. Highly recommended.

This was my first time for ethiopian food, and I will absolutely be back. There are some things that I would have done a bit differently that I’ll have to attempt in my next visit.
Dinner was pretty great. I ordered the stewed lamb with cabbage and spinach. The lamb tasted very good and had a delicious spice to it, but I don’t think that I would order it again. I think that I would have prefered to have something that was a bit more dry rather than stewed (the sauce kind of over powered the other flavors on the plate). The cabbage was terrific, but I did not really like the spinach, it had a lemon flavor to it that I didn’t enjoy.
We went to the tiny dive bar in the back of the restaurant after dinner. It wasn’t bad, nothing too special about it either. But it did have cheap drinks, interesting people, and friendly service even though it was packed to capacity.

There are certain establishments that seem so certain of one aspect of their business that they completely let other aspects slide. Dahlak falls into this category. Apparently they’ve won awards for their food, and I won’t argue with that — the platter of vegetables and whipped beans and amazingly fluffy flatbread that my date and I enjoyed was definitely worthy of praise.
But the fact that I was sitting on a tiny block right next to a cobweb-​covered radiator with peeling paint made me wonder if there would be flakes of lead in my food. Our food platter was perched precariously on a wicker stand that was really wobbly. I get that the seating arrangements are authentic Eritrian, but my chiropractor would certainly scowl at the setup. It would have been nice to have been offered a choice between that or one of the normal tables. And it seemed like the hostess/​server was rushing to get everyone out the door within 20 minutes of being served.
If you’re a successful restaurant already, why not just throw us a bone with regards to cleanliness and décor?