Meskel

This place wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.
My boyfriend and I were really craving Ethiopian food so we found the nearest one to my place and tried it out. Our first impression was that it was a really small and intimate with decent service. So far it sounds great and it would be great had it not been for the food. The food was just meh :/​. There are some Ethiopian restaurants that would make me crave their food, however this place is not one of them.
Now if I was really desperate to get the craving satisfied and this place was the only one around, than maybe I would consider coming here again. However, if it were just a regular dinner, then probably not.

This place was great. The food was delicious. Loved all the mushy goodness. Would absolutely recommend to anyone who likes to be an adventurous eater. The only downfall was the woman was mad I used my living social. She said she was upset I didn’t show it to her before ordering. Which seemed kind of sketchy because the deal was just $ 60 off the check. That shouldn’t have made a difference regardless.

Tried this place because of Groupon, was not disappointed! Arrived at 7:30 on a Tuesday, and we were the only patrons for an hour, until 1 other pair showed up.
Ordered the two salads to start — both are wrapped in injera, which held up nicely, even with the salad dressing. Definitely try the Avocado salad.
Went with the meat sampler, and the vegetarian sampler. Both were tasty, and the injera was light, fluffy and the perfect texture. The portions were reasonable, and only a couple of the curries (10 overall) were outstanding.
I would have appreciated an explanation to the meal, since each plate came with several curries to try.
Without the Groupon, the meal would have cost $ 80 without tip. In my opinion, it’s not worth that much. The food is yummy, but a little too pricey for what you get.

Eat with your hands. Share with friends. Order Tibs wat, gomen besaega, and miser wat. Get an avocado salad and the honey wine. Night = made.
It’s not too spicy, which is perfect for my American palate, but extra spice can be requested. It was my first time trying Ethiopian food and it opened a door to a whole new cuisine.

Normally at an Ethiopian place they put the pancake thing on top and you get the food in different dishes. This palce ruins the mystique of eating out of a metal plate like at a normal Ethiopian place; its like eating curry instead.
Food /​presentation (especially) is not great and service was slow.

I ordered pickup through Seamless at Meskel, and when I arrived at the restaurant 15 min later the owners told me that they hadn’t received my order. I was unable to pull up the confirmation number on my phone, but when I told them my credit card had been charged they began preparing my food, no questions asked. They took down my contact info and asked me to give them a call with the confirmation number when I got home. Incredibly, I was in and out of the restaurant in less than five minutes!
Needless to say, the owners were lovely and to top it off, my meal was absolutely DELICIOUS. I ordered the vegetarian sampler and the food: injera ratio was near perfect. Everything was warm, flavorful, and the portions were quite large. I will definitely be a repeat customer — thanks Meskel!

3.5 stars.
I came with the Groupon deal which came with 2 salads, 2 entrees 2 drinks. The food was EXCELLENT, service was quite slow (–1 star).
First of all I tried to call and make a reservation and no one ever picked up. I figured they are just busy so went anyway figuring we could just go and see how it goes. When i arrived I started to feel kind of bad about that since it is just one older lady running the whole operation so gave the benefit of the doubt.
The avocado salad wrap was super tasty. The veggies were fresh, the Ethiopian sponge bread was soft and delicious, the vinaigrette dressing added a lot of flavor.
The beef stew was GREAT as well. Super flavorful seasoning and spice. Among the best beef stews I’ve had anywhere. The chicken stew was also good, I just wish they could do boneless it would be less tedious. When I come back I think we should just order two beef stews instead.
They were out of the popular Ethiopian honey wine which was disappointing and also the veggie side stews could have been a little more flavorful. (-.5 star).
Conclusion:
Great food overall, highly recommended. I will definitely be back, just wish the service was a bit better and that they can stock the honey wine more regularly.
Pros:
beef stew wonderful
salad wrap amazing
Cons:
Slow service (–1 star)
Veggie stew just ok, no honey wine (-.5 star)

Groupon or any other vouchers is not worth it!
I came here with a $ 30 groupon for $ 50 worth of food. Because I brought the groupon 2+ months ago, I couldn’t remember if the groupon was for any food adding up to $ 50 or a set meal such as one appetizer, two entrees type of deal. My boyfriend and I tried asking our waiter when I tried to order only one appetizer along with two entrees. He tells us we can order two appetizers because it comes with the groupon. Big scam! The groupon is suppose to be good for any food adding up to $ 50. But instead he played us so we can order way over the $ 50. After 2 appetizers, 2 entrees, and 2 glass of wine, our total was $ 71! The entrée itself cost $ 22 each, which I truly think it’s overpriced. Like many people said, they inflate the price to get more money out of groupon/​voucher buyers. So after the groupon, our total was $ 20.40, this including «service fee» and tax. So in reality I paid $ 30 for the groupon + $ 21 at the restaurant = $ 51. No thank you!
Because of this experience, I’m reconsidering not buying any more groupons if restaurants are going to be unprofessional about a deal they choose to advertise on groupon!
Food=5 (first time eating Ethopian food)
Service=3
Professionalism=0

I’ve come here a few times now and well, the experience is just mediocre, that’s why I haven’t been motivated to write a review. But, I feel like I need to share some info about this to the Unilocal world.
Do not be fooled that you are getting a good deal with the Groupon you purchased. I came here on a Thursday night with a friend since she told me she needed to use a Groupon she purchased for here. She bought a $ 21 deal which includes two glass of beverage (only alcohol included), two appetizers and two entrees. Sounds like a good deal right? But wait there’s more to the story…
Now, don’t get me wrong. My favorite cuisine is Ethiopian so I am not complaining about that. But, for appetizers, there is salad and then there’s salad. So that’s your appetizer choice, basically no choice. You do get to chose an entrée of your liking and we were both able to get the veggie sampler. I would have to say the veggie sampler is a good deal. There is lentils, cabbage, collard greens, beans and beets. This was a delicious and plentiful dish. I couldn’t finish it.
Now, what I am going to gripe about is that the Groupon does not include tax and the service charge. And that is where they get you, but seriously, they need to pay the rent. So for 2 people, the service charge is 20% off the regular tab, which means our service charge came to $ 14 plus tax which was $ 6. So we had to pay another extra $ 20 on top of the Groupon deal. So it ended up being $ 20/​person for a glass of honey tej, some salad wrapped in injera, and an entrée. Honestly, not a bad deal.
But don’t think you’re getting steal here, because it will cost you about $ 20/​person, but in the end, it still works out to a decent price for decent Ethiopian meal in the East Village. After all, they have to keep the lights on…

I came here with a friend to make use of a LivingSocial deal that I had purchased.
The restaurant itself is rather small. It might not be a good place to bring a group but would be great for date night or some time with a buddy.
I love Ethiopian food so I was excited to try a new spot. In my ravenous state, I couldn’t decide which dish to get so I chose the vegetarian combination (miser alech, miser wat, vegetarian gomen, fosolia and tikil gomen). Everything was amazing! From the injera to the miser wat, I enjoyed every last bit.
Although the food was excellent, the service was a bit lacking. I get the feeling that was because we were using a coupon. The other problem was that the restaurant had run out of honey wine (usually a staple in Ethiopian restaurants I’ve been to) and they don’t offer any sort of dessert. Had they offered desserts, coffee, or honey wine we certainly would have spent more money and stayed longer. We actually decided to head down the street to get our dessert and coffee fix.
Also, I know that many people don’t tip properly when they use a coupon, but I still get a bit annoyed when the tip is automatically applied to the bill. I actually would have tipped more had that not been placed automatically on my bill.
Overall, a decent place, but there could be some improvements.

Love trying new food and their vegetarian platter was a treat! Kind of exciting to try the sauces and guess what they were made of.
I was disappointed that the night I came in the honey wine was not available. Like wtha? Seemed a bit odd.
My friend and I had a Groupon for one appetizer, drink and entrée each. The price was not bad. I was just confused on what the gratuity charge was for. I ended up tipping the waitress more because she was really nice.
All in all, try it!
You may love it

Great place to try Ethiopian cuisine
highly recommend
interesting dishes
nice & small place
calm
good service

ATTENTION DINERS, if you came here with a voucher or coupon, they might give you a different menu than those who came in without one! In the «menu for people with vouchers», I suspect they ARTIFICIALLY INFLATE THE PRICE so there’s almost no difference whether you get a discount or not!
I had a
certificate and came with my boyfriend last night. The food was decent, not huge portion but still satisfying. We had Meskel Combo and Miser Alecha, and the bill was around $ 39, after my discount, I paid $ 24 for the food before tip.
After I came back home, when I was uploading the food pictures, I looked up the online menu
for Meskel (to see the dish names so I can add them as description to my pictures), I found that the Meskel Combo is only $ 15.75 instead of $ 22, and the Miser Alecha is $ 10 instead of $ 14! I found a Unilocaler has taken a picture of the menu we got (
), note that the «Meskel Combo» is $ 22.00!
The food was decent, flavorful with nice presentation. The service was good, and the atmosphere is quaint and cozy. My only caveat is, don’t bother wasting phone battery showing them a voucher, seems like you pay the same price no matter what.

So, this was my experience with Ethiopian Cuisine. I came across a great Groupon Deal for this place; 2 appetizers, 2 entrees and Wine for $ 30 (plus I had a 20% groupon discount). So I was super excited!
It’s a very small place, so reservations are a must! My husband and I came on a Sunday Night so it wasn’t too crowded. We were seated immediately and the staff asked if we had a Groupon, and explained our choices.
We started off with the recommended Ethiopian Honey Wine, «Tej». Wow! This stuff was amazing!!! One sip and It won me over! Wish they actually sold this so I could’ve bought some home.
Appetizer: You get only 2 choices. I went with the avocado salad wrapped in injera (Ethiopian Sourdough Bread) and my husband had the regular salad wrapped in injera. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be good and was blown away of how delicious this was! The salad had a light tangy dressing that went perfectly with the injera. I just simply couldn’t stop eating it!!! But charging $ 8 for one? It was definitely overpriced!
Entrée: My husband and I both had the Meskel Sampler. It came with 2 kinds of meat, 2 kinds of lentils and kale on Injera bread as well as additional pieces of injera. I thought it was ok, but not great. The spices in each item was mild and nothing really exotic. Also, it was a bit annoying to eat because the plate kept sliding and moving, because of the table counter design. And charging $ 22-​$ 24 for this dish was definitely not worth it!
Our bill came and we ended up paying $ 20 extra because of tax and the already included 20% service charge (this was unexpected). So overall we spent $ 50 on this dinner. I would probably recommend looking into another Ethiopian Restaurant if you want to try the cuisine. The food here is ok, but way too expensive for the quantity.

In an attempt to branch out and try different cuisines, my best friend (and food buddy) and I ventured to Meskel via a Groupon deal (like many of the other Unilocal-​ers who have tried this restaurant). Meskel is tucked away (almost hidden, really) on a semi-​quiet street in the East Village.
There are several larger restaurants and bars located in the vicinity of the area and Meskel’s open door restaurant front warmly invites diners in. When I came here, it was still warm enough to comfortably sit semi-​outside and it made for a very home-​y, dinner.
The waitress was a very pleasant Ethiopian woman who quickly took our drink orders and gave us the menus, explaining what we could order with the Groupon deal; which was 2 glasses of wine, 2 appetizers, and 2 entrees. The wine that we originally wanted (the Honey Wine) was out so we both got white wine. As for food, my main dish was the vegetarian combo (miser alech, miser wat, vegetarian gomen, fosolia, and tikil gomen) and it was served with Ethiopian bread.
We weren’t sure how to exactly eat everything — I assumed that you just scooped everything up with the bread. A lot of the things were easy to scoop up with bread, while with some of the other things on the plate I just ate with a fork. My favorite components of the dish were the miser wat (lentil dish with garlic, onions, olive role, and ground red pepper sauce) and the miser alecha. I think liked those the best because they were made with lentils, which I love.
I was not a big fan of the collard greens (gomen) and string beans (fosolia) because the overall taste and texture did not sit well with me. The flavors slightly reminded me of Indian food, it reminded me of curry and other spices. Overall, I’m glad I went and tried out a cuisine that I otherwise would never try. I liked venturing outside of my food comfort zone and I think that anyone who likes to try new food should give Meskel a shot.
The Groupon deal (if it’s still going on) is definitely your best bet because you can try the samplers which I think is the best option because you get a bit of everything. The ambiance of the restaurant was very casual and the service is really friendly and nice.

Took my ethiopian boyfriend here for his birthday. The décor was great he felt right at home once he walked in. We have the avocado salad qith injera whichbwas delish!!! and since its traditional to have doro wat before and on ethiopian new year, we got that. It was really good not as spicy as id thought but it tasted even better the next day. I used the groupon 2 apps, 2ent 2 glasses of wine. The honey wine was sold out unfortunately, but ill try it next time. The waiter which i think is the owners wife, was so nice she thought i was habesha and started speaking to me in amharic. I was so flattered she would mistake me for such beautiful people, hahas she got a big tip of course.

Generous portions served, even with Groupon!
_​INJERA (spongy bread) is GLUTEN-​FREE (not all injera is).
And they gave us sooo much more injera that I took it home
in a full take-​out container they gave me.
_​SALAD was TOO SALTY and tangy, tasted like it was dressed in salt/​soy sauce.
_​VEGETABLE PLATTER is DELICIOUS!
Would return for the vegetable platter & injera.

Great Ethiopean cuisine in Alphabet City. The restaurant space is clean and has plenty of natural lighting. I came with a groupon deal that allotted for a choice of one starter, entrée, plus a glass of wine per person. I had the Timatim salad which tasted fresh made with chopped tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and lettuce seasoned with olive oil and vinegar atop injera. For this portion of the meal, you can opt to use utensils.
I ordered the Meskel Sampler for the entrée which came with five varieties from veggie based to beef. I thoroughly enjoyed it as some of it was spicy while the rest wasn’t. It was a great contrast on textures to flavors. The honey wine was nice and light, it wasn’t as sweet as what I’ve previously had and also not as boozy but that’s a good thing for enjoying a nice light wine that pairs well with the meal.
The dining room doesn’t offer an area for more traditional dining as I’ve seen at other Ethiopean restaurants. Service is on the slow side but that’s only because there is one woman running the show.

Determined to not let yet another Groupon expire (due to going to places in the neighborhood instead [due to laziness]), we came to Meskel last night for dinner.
This place is indeed rather casual and tiny, but there were two available tables and we were immediately seated at one. We were given a very small menu. Sometimes a small menu can be helpful when deciding what to order (those diner menus with like 200 dishes to choose from are super annoying). However, this menu was so small that between my boyfriend and me, and taking into account the sampler platters, I left here having tried pretty much everything on the menu.
The Groupon allowed for two glasses of wine, two appetizers, and two entrees. For drinks we both got the honey wine (tej). I’ve had tej before and enjoyed it, but this particular version was overly sweet. My boyfriend also ordered a beer. They only had one type of beer — St. George’s, which is Ethiopian — which was okay, but served kind of warm.
The appetizers were an Ethiopian first for me. We got one of each, and they were basically lettuce and tomato doused in a slightly pungent, vinegary dressing (somewhat similar to Italian dressing, I’d say) and wrapped in injera. One also contained avocado. These were okay, nothing too special. The dressing was a tad intense for me. I probably wouldn’t order them again; then again, if you want an appetizer this is pretty much the option.
For the entrée, I ordered the doro wat, which came with miser wat and whatever Ethiopian chickpeas as called (at least I think it’s chickpeas). Everything was nice and flavorful; I especially loved the chickpeas. It definitely wasn’t the best Ethiopian I’ve had. Then again, having lived in DC for five years, I have unusually high standards for Ethiopian food.
The issue that I have with Meskel is that it is just too darned expensive for the quality and amount of the food. Without the Groupon, our bill would have come out to roughly $ 35-​$ 40 each, sans tip… that would’ve been worth it if it was a top notch meal, but a top notch meal it was not.

Having discovered Ethiopian food about a year ago was such a doubled-​edged sword: my boyfriend is so sick of hearing me talk about it, want it, beg for it, eating it, etc. and this food is like crack, I literally want it every day, even for dessert after eating it for dinner. Nonethless, I got him to go last weekend :).
Came here via their Groupon on Saturday night. 2 apps, 2 entrees and 2 glasses of wine for $ 35. The restaurant was empty which made us nervous, but I’m never in a bad mood when I am getting my Ethiopian food fix in.
TIPS:
–The honey wine was just okay– Awash’s is much better. The waitress did offer to let us choose any wine on the menu (before we ordered), so you may wish to opt for that.
–We both got the avocado salad as our appetizer (pictured). This salad was DELICIOUS. Fresh avocado, tomato and onion in a lemony dressing served on injera. Really excellent.
–We both ordered the Meskel combo (pictured). I don’t like lamb, so she was nice enough to substitute that out for me. The serving appears much smaller than Awash’s, but it is so filling, don’t let it fool you. Everything was tasty– I’m not a huge fan of the collared greens, but that’s person. The tibs wat is also better at Awash, but still good here.
I thought the Groupon deal was excellent, particularly if you get the weeknight one for $ 29.
FYI– The UCB (Upright Citizen’s Brigade) is around the corner, so we caught a 10pm comedy show (pre-​planned). It made for a wonderful date. We will come back to this restaurant, particularly with our second Groupon.