- Our spread at Dareye restaurant, trip #1. Delicious mesir watt!
The East Bay is home to a LOT of Ethiopian restaurants. You might think this is a good thing, but it literally took me eight different restaurants before I was able to find enjoy. After two visits (one good, one not so good), I’m ready to make a bold statement–I like me some Dareye Ethiopian.
First, let’s get the not so great aspects out of the way. This is a tiny restaurant, and sometimes, service gets backed up. This is common in just about every Ethiopian restaurant I’ve ever visited, so not a huge surprise. On my last visit, I waited for an hour to be served my food because a new server forgot to put my order in.
While this sucked, the staff was incredibly apologetic, got me the food as soon as possible, and took care of the bill. I have never had such great customer service–especially after a major mistake–than I did at Dareye. So a down, but not really a down.
On to the good. Their injera is made from real teff grains, which makes for an even more delicious bread (and one that is ultra carb conscious for my gestational diabetes). My staple dish, mesir watt, a spicy lentil stew, is probably one of the tastiest I’ve had in Berkeley and Oakland. Although a little dry, the chicken tibs had a delicious sauce, and on another visit, the zil zil tibs (beef with a spicy sauce) were perfectly cooked and even zestier, which I love. Finally, they have this light sort of egg salad condiment in the center of the dish, and it just makes for a nice, different touch on the platter.
And I dig the non-sweet chile sauce the sambusas came with. A LOT.
So my opinion after two trips (and one not so good) is that this is a restaurant worth checking out. Just be prepared to wait on the weekend, and be patient for your delicious food. It’s worth the wait.
~LTG!
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Dareye Hide Away restaurant
6430 Telegraph Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 891-1028
Tags: Berkeley, Dareye restaurant
