Jean K.
Yelp
Costs seems to be catching up with the Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurants these days. Stews are flat tasting, lacking those rich complex flavors from a good long braise. The only difference between dishes seems to be how much heat is added.
Abesha has always had better veggie food than meats, but the meats were good enough to pass. We had not been back in a while so thought we should try them again.
Veggie Combo (any five). Mushrooms and shirro (pureed chickpeas) were good. Yellow lentils (YeAter kik) were bland, needing salt (and I'm a low-salt person). YeMisir Wot: Red lentils were good, spicy altho no depth of flavor. Tikil Gomen Dinish: Sliced cabbage, carrots and potatoes, was also okay, altho cabbage was crunchy and potatoes MIA.
Meat Combo: set trio of:
YeDoro Tibs: Chicken breast in spicy yellow gravy. Good but nothing exceptional.
YeDoro Wot: Spicy chicken. No cheese, but spouse got an entire hard-boiled egg, which surprised us. Most restaurants have omitted the whole egg these days. Abesha gets bonus points just for the egg, LOL.
Beef Wot: Spicy beef in red gravy. Good, and we'd order it again. It doesn't quite have the depth that Red Sea's beef wot has, however.
Portions of the above were very small. We added:
Fish Tibs. A generous helping of catfish fillets, dusted with spiced flour and fried. The fish pieces are cut into manageable size, then dry-floured, which is how we prefer it. No dip, Spouse loves fried fish and would come here just for this dish.
Abesha remains one of the better Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurants in Oakland/Berkeley. We liked Lemat/Berkeley the best, but need to make a return visit to confirm consistency.
Parking can be difficult these days on this stretch of Temescal, even in the day time. Be aware there is street sweeping on one side on Fri mornings, so don't get a ticket!