Buna Ethiopian Restaurant & Market

Just had the lamb stew and veg combo and it was rich, succulent, delicious. Reinforced my confidence that everything here is made with loving care and good good good.

The best part of this place is the fun owner who is also super nice. I like knowing my food is made by happy people. Food is very good with generous portions. With a bit more flavor and spice it would be 5 stars.

I love this Place Buna Ethiopian Restaurant. I ordered the combination dish with a variety of meat and vegetarian dishes with Injera bread. I ate and ate, and then ate and ate more and more. I love there Injera.
If you have never tried Ethiopia cuisine, you are in for a treat, It is the ultimate comfort food. Best described as hearty stews, cooked by your Ethiopia grand mother for hours and serve with the deliciously tangy and spongy Injera bread. The prefect vehicle to transport all of the flavors to your mouth.
The atmosphere was warm and inviting with pictures and artifacts from Ethiopia adorning the walls, tables and every inch of the restaurant. I will be back again and again like my mother house.
NG

This is my first time ordering from Buna, and in fact my first encounter with Ethiopian food.
This was a pleasant surprise !!!
I ordered the baked fish with a wonderful tasting combination of vegetarian dishes.
The whole fish, served with an entire lemon was moist and utterly delicious.
(small warning… this is an entire fish. head, tail, bones, enjoy but take out the bones first. very simple)
The vegetarian dishes were fresh, varied, and moderately spiced… greens, cabbage, lentils, tomato salad (like a salsa) chickpea paste etc.
All is served with the Ethiopian bread staple– Injera bread… unique and delicious, the Ethiopian tortilla.
This was a meal big enough to share… and we both loved it.
Ending the meal was a yummy home made Tiramisu… highly recommended.
I will definitely come back again for this inexpensive, exotic and delicious meal.

Tasty and affordable Ethiopian Food on Fairfax avenue (in little Ethiopia). We split a veggie combo and an order of Kitfo (raw spicy beef). The Kitfo was so tasty we quickly polished it off but did not have room for equally delicious veggie stews. Service was friendly but not fast. It was well worth the wait.

Turns out there is an area in LA where you can find a number of Ethiopian restaurants clustered together, and Unilocal led us here to Buna Ethiopian Restaurant & Market, where you won’t be surprised to hear is a small Ethiopian market with a restaurant located in the back.
An open kitchen overlooking six tables with table service. Casual, quiet, with reasonable take out business during our visit for dinner.
We ordered the fish #25 $ 14.99 — oven baked with garlic salt and served with four kind of veg platter — after seeing it on another table. Imagine, a whole fish, served with a variety of veggie sides and injera, the traditional sour Ethiopian flat bread used for grabbing bites of food Yes, plenty for two appetites, and then some. Yeah, over half the fish came home with us, along with maybe a third of the veggies, and some leftover bread. The fish was hot and tender with pleasantly crisp skin. Some of the veggies were too spicy for me, but fortunately I had a taste tester in my dc.
Even though we were full, we decided to try Ethiopian flavor tiramisu $ 3.50 out of curiosity. It looked like a normal tiramisu, but had an interesting flavor profile. I wasn’t crazy about it and probably would probably recommend skipping it.
At the server’s recommendation, we took advantage of the 10% discount for checking in on Unilocal

Great tasty food! Amazing tiramisu, better than in most Italian places in LA… My favorite is trout, lamb and kifto! Owners are very friendly and definitely have amazing cooking talents. If you go there you get a chance to grasp what real Ethiopia feels like… Keep it up Buna!

If you ever feel like having Ethiopian food, this is definitely the place to be!
I have tried Ethiopian food a couple times in the past and to be honest, never really a big fan because of the distinctive sourness of injera (Ethiopian flatbread). But their injera is not overly sour like some other restaurants in the area, therefore I think is easier to enjoy even if you are injera virgin.
Trying Ethiopian food for the first time? No worries :) The place is owned by this nice gentlemen who would recommend which dishes are the best and would even teach you how to eat properly using your hands.

Excellent excellent flavorful Ethiopian food! Don’t be scurred by the market looking front, there are tables in the back and the food was superb. We ordered the meat combination and the veg combination. Both were great. Especially loved the sweet onion flavor of the lamb, the red lentils and the collards. Service was good. Can’t wait to return.
Only downside is they don’t serve alcohol and my husband was looking for a nice cold beer, but I think he could have gone down to the 7 – 11 and got one to bring in if be wasn’t being lazy.

Awesome food, great prices. First time for Ethiopian food, what a great experience. We ordered the fish (best fish ever) samosas and the beef. Everything was so fresh and the portions were huge.
Definitely worth the trip if you are in the area.

Returned more recently and got the veggie combo. Very good flavors, and the injera was plentiful. Having said that, they still brought the injera out cold (rather than room temp), which isn’t ideal with hot food, but they obliged when I asked if they could warm it up to room temp. I didn’t actually need it warm (which is what I got), but at least they tried. Not a ton of ambiance here, but the service is hospitable, and it’s a good, more reasonably priced alternative to Meals by Genet, which is still my top choice in the neighborhood. In any case, they earned back a star from last time, and I’d definitely return sometime.

My daughter and I eat in a new «country» every week. This week it was Ethiopian! Buna was wonderful! Super flavors, and textures. Injera is the best utensil ever!
We had Salmon and a Veggie combo!
Jenn found it very novel to eat with her hands, and she wants to come back! That is a win in my book!

I had the veggie combo and it was just wonderful. The service was great but one of the things I love best is that the kitchen is open to view and super clean and organized. I’m picky about that type of thing so this was a nice find!
The injera was fresh and the dish was full of good flavor.

Buna put’s love into every dish and every spec of the restaurant. With there open kitchen, and there honest service it’s becoming to feel as if it’s my second home. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, with that being said Buna is divine!
I love the vibes and energy I get from the food even.
Keep going! Thanks again

Nothing about our experience was right. We went there because of the great Unilocal reviews and are still amazed this whole experience really happened.
We put enough money in the parking meter for a little over an hour, and while waiting for our food I had to run an put more. By the time our food arrived we almost ran out of the meter again and had to eat quickly and run.
The food was great, that’s the one good thing however the portions were tiny! We’ve been eating at various Ethiopian restaurants and this is the first time we ever cleaned our plate, and then had some room for more.
A couple of Ethiopian women came in before we left and got their plate pretty quickly, and their plate was packed. We were shocked at how small ours looked when we saw theirs.
Anyway, we were in a rush to get out before the meter ran out, so we paid quickly and jumped out. A couple of days later we noticed a big charge from the restaurant on our credit bill, so we checked their menu to make sure we were not confused about the prices. Again, first time we were ever charged a wrong amount from a restaurant. We called and asked about that, they said it was the tip! Even if the service was amazing, and it wasn’t, they still haven’t earned a 50% tip. We asked that they correct this error and they agreed, but apparently their prices went up right before we called and they’ll only correct it to the higher amount.
If the owner is reading this comment — we already contacted Chase and notified them of the fraud and asked to correct the charge to the right amount. If you have any desire to make this right, feel free contact us through Unilocal.You also have our number.

If your are a foodie who enjoys a little adventure, this is the restaurant for you !!
From outside, this place looks really small and suspicious. And once you enter it looks like an ethnic spice shop and it doesn’t seem like a restaurant at all.
You will be seated in back portion of the building which is the dining area which is very small. I believe there are only six tables. If you are bringing someone who are only into restaurants with hip and sophisticated atmosphere, or if this is your first date, don’t bring ur dates here.
But the whole experience was so interesting and satisfying to me! Felt like I was in a foreign country as if I am Andrew Zimern from «Bizarre Foods America»
And the food… Where do I begin? Eating with your hand is kind of fun because it reminds you how much fun you used to have with food when you were a kid! :-D
And the taste!!! Their meat plate is so filling and yummy! We got cubed lamb meat and meat combo. Meat was cooked just right. Not too salty or spicy. We were so full by the time we were done. They serve generous portion!

Really nice family owned place
Welcoming and appreciative owner
Delicious lamb stew
Great crispy beef
I would recommend getting the veggie combo when dining there because it really covers a lot of bases
The bread is fantastic
The long-​ish wait was worth it because everything tastes fresh
The spices are still dancing on my tongue
I think this is a place I’ll be heading back to so I can try their fish dish

I’ve eaten at pretty much every Ethiopian Restaurant on Fairfax except for this one, until today! We chose this one because of the 20% Unilocal check-​in coupon that they were offering.
The set up of the restaurant was a little strange since it’s a market and a restaurant in one, but it worked. Overall, the food was good and of course plentiful. The kitchen is fully open and visible from the tables, so I could see our food being prepared.

I was introduced to Ethiopian food during a visit to SF and loved it. I was determined to my own favorite Ethiopian place here in LA.
After checking out the reviews on Unilocal,Buna was my first attempt. Oh no. It was so good!!! I’m now extremely de-​motivated to try other places. =(
We had the foul, Doro Tibet, and the fish. Everything was great — — and way, way too much for two very hungry people. We wanted to stuff ourselves to the gills but made the supreme sacrifice of packing them in in carry out boxes so we’d have room for the baklava. =) good job! It was delicious, just sweet enough. I usually find baklava too sweet, but this was perfect.

Looks like I’m packing my bags and moving to Ethiopia! For the longest time I never thought Ethiopian food catered to my restrictive diet (for health reasons), however when my friend brought some takeout over and showed/​let me sample the spread, I realized RIGHT AWAY that I have in fact been sheltering my taste buds for 20+ years!
Ever since my tiny sampling, I had been craving Ethiopian so I made my friend take me to where she got the scrumptiousness. We wound up in this hole in the wall, a tiny market with a café in the back. It was completely empty, minus two cute women in the kitchen.
My friend and I both ordered the fish (white trout) that comes with four sides. For $ 12.99 and a 20% discount if you check in on Unilocal,this was a friggin’ steal!
As our food cooked, we wandered the small shop to entertain ourselves… And then the main event arrived and let’s just say, for the next 25 minutes, my friend and I did not say a word to each other because the food was EPIC! The fish is pan seared in a garlic salt and the sides are 100% vegan. When I licked my plate clean, I notice my friend still had a whole other side of her trout to go and then I heard the magic words: I’m full, do you want to finish my plate?
I literally pounced on the table like a cat and gobbled the rest of her fish in about five minutes (including all of the bones, minus the spinal cord– good source of calcium people!)
When our bill arrived I was literally shocked beyond belief! $ 23 for TWO HUGE ENTREES! These fish were at least 12 – 14 oz each! Any restaurant in Beverly Hills would change at least $ 40 for such a dish! Because I felt like I was robbing this place blind, I left a nice tip that hopefully they appreciated!
I will be back… In fact I think next time I might bring a sleeping bag because I would totally want this fish again for breakfast!