Adulis

A group of us booked a table for four last week and ended up having one of the greatest eating experiences of our lives. I have been to Eritrean and Ethiopian restaurants before and am fairly familiar with the cuisine but my three friends have never tasted the food.

From the moment we arrived to the time we left, we had fun. Throughout our meal, the manager, who also happened to be the sister of the owner, was very attentive and kept on revisiting our table. Having explained in detail how the traditional honey wine is made, she offered to give us free tasters. Having tasted it, we ended up demolishing two whole bottles while my Finnish friend ended up buying two more bottles to take back home. When we finished our meal, the owner was kind enough to give us a tour of the restaurant including the newly refurbished basement area which is decorated with amazing murals. Apparently, they hold concerts of Jazz and World Music there twice a month.

The food was great and the service was second to and the night, aided with loads of honey wine, was sweet. My three friends are now proper converts. Adulis, until next time then!

This was a surprise booking for my brother in-law who was up for any celebration after securing a dream job. Having visited the restaurant a couple of times before, I thought this would be a good way to celebrate with a touch of adventure for the in-laws as well as a couple of other friends. Adulis didn't disappoint - the ambience, the food and the superb wine list – it was an amazing experience for my ‘guests’. They thoroughly enjoyed the visit and they might have just become converts now :)

I'm actually totally mindblown - as to just how unbelievably bad an experience we've just had. at Adulis. We waited an hour & a quarter just for the starter, then when the main finally came, it looked really amazing (we had ordered a vegetarian combo platter for 2). It was a big dish of injera, with at least 8 or 9 different dishes on it, possibly as many as 10. The first one i tried was tasty enough, but it seemed strange that it was only just luke warm. I tried the other dishes 1 by 1 - luke warm was the best it got - & that was only for 1 other dish. All the others were abolsutely stone cold. And I mean like straight out of the fridge stone cold. They were all tasty enough, but it just didn't seem right. We have eaten at ethiopian restaurants several times, & it seemed to be much the same type of food, but the dishes were always hot previously. We called the guy over & asked if they were supposed to be cold, & he said no, apart from 1 of them, they should all be hot. He took the plate away, & came back another 15 minutes later, with the very same plate, with the very same injera & the very same half eaten scoops of food on it. The injera, that had previously been just about at room temperature, was now completely cold. The actual dishes themselves were still only luke warm. It seemed that they had been microwaved halfheartedly 1 by 1, & that by the time they had finished, most of them were cold again. I think that as a minimum, they could have put it on fresh, warm injera, & properly heated the food through, & preferably given us fresh scoops of all the various dishes. Basically, I walked out in disgust. And instead of being apologetic, the guy started getting shirty with me. Maybe this is not how they usually are, but even if so, the one thing I can now state as a fact beyond all reasonable doubt, & QED, is that all the food they serve at Adulis comes straight out of the fridge - nothing is cooked to order. I really feel compelled to say something now, as this is quite possibly the worst meal out I have ever had. And it's Valentine's night as well!