Came here when it was mostly empty. We weren't greeted or seated. We had to grab our own drinks out of the fridge. No one approached us for about 20 mins after seating ourselves. We waited so long after we ordered our food (about 45 mins), so we attempted to leave and were forced to pay for everything we ordered before any drink or food arrived. They quickly brought our alcoholic bevarage and appetizers. We told our server that we could pay for the drink and appetizer, but they brought us the entire bill - which included the entre we didn't get. Just a horrible experience overall.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
mercy ndungu
I’ve had Ethiopian food countless times and whatever you guys are selling is a joke. No heat in the spices just blunt cold food. Very disappointed. In response to your threat, did you see anywhere that I mentioned Kenyan food? If you can’t take positive criticism and better your business I don’t know what you expected me to say. Again, I’ve had Ethiopian food countless times and this was not it.
bobbie irvin
I’ve been coming to this restaurant for over 15 years …. The food has been amazingly consistent. I’ve been to others throughout the US , they’ve come close , but no
I knew it would be good but it was SO amazing and so flavorful. Friendly fast service. So much food for the price. Will be back again asap. We got vegetarian but I can’t wait to come back and try everything else.Dietary restrictions: They asked if we wanted gluten free. Nice touch.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Vegetarian Sampler
Ben H.
The only reason this review isn't a five is because they seemed a little under-staffed at our time of visiting, which led to some pretty long wait times. We ate out on the patio and had a lovely time. I highly recommend the Vegetarian Sampler Platter that comes with so many dishes to try. The mushrooms and potatoes are fantastic! Some of the best Ethiopian food we've had. A must-visit if you're in KC.
Kim Barron
It was a terrific vegan experience! Food was impeccable. The nice young man who was our waiter even asked if my dog would like water! Beautiful experience.Vegetarian options: Half the menu was vegan- wow that is just so very rare.Am super excited they are DOG FRIENDLY!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Sampler Platter
Shalil J.
Located in the heart of the city market, this Ethiopian restaurant is a hidden gem and a must try for your next visit to Kansas City! To start out with, we ordered the veggies sambusa. For those who have never had Ethiopian before, this is similar to a samosa from Indian cuisine or an empanada from Latin American cuisine. It was a pastry filled with lentils and veggies, and I'd highly recommend giving it a try. We were a party of 3 and we weren't too hungry the night we visited so we decided to share the sampler platter combo for our main meal, as was recommended by our friendly waiting staff. This dish featured all 8 of the veggie options and 3 meat options. In my opinion, this was the perfect way to try everything. My favorite of the veggie options is yellow split pea, number 4; my favorite of the meat option was the Doro watt, number 10, which was the marinated chicken. All of the options on the platter were fantastic and tasty! For dessert, we tried the baklava. It was one of the sweetest and tastiest baklavas I have eaten, and I'd highly recommend this as the perfect way to finish your night! The restaurant itself is casual so you don't need to dress very fancy for it and the seating is cafe style. It's a tasty and quaint way to spend an evening!
Sarah A.
Best Ethiopian food I've ever had!! I've tried a lot of Ethiopian food and this was by the first bite my all time favorite. The service was very polite as well. 10/10
This was my first time trying Ethiopian food, and it was very nice. We shared the vegetarian sampler and agreed that the spicy red lentils were the best, though everything tasted great. The highlight for me, though, was the spiced tea. It was easily the most flavorful and satisfying tea I've ever tasted, and I hope to be able to replicate it at home.Like most of the eating options at the City Market, it's a little cramped inside, and you don't really get any cultural or individualistic flavor from the the interior, but that's a minor nitpick given that the food hits the mark.Vegetarian options: Typically, a restaurant that isn't dedicated solely to vegetarian or vegan food will have one or two token options for those who don't want meat. I'm not complaining — it wasn't too long ago when expecting even that much was ridiculous. But a restaurant that has deep and varied menus for veggie lovers and carnivores alike is a treasure. This isn't what I would call the "Mexican restaurant" model of vegetarian menus, featuring mostly the same few ingredients shuffled around in uninspiring, copy-and-pasted ways. These are real dishes with distinct identities and obvious care put into their creation. I'm sure the same is true for the meat dishes. Well done, Blue Nile!
Vegetarian options: The misir wett was to die for!!!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Veggie Combo
Josie B
Everything here is amazing. We came by at 6pm on a rainy Friday evening and was shocked it wasn't more packed! KC is sleeping on this place.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Vegetarian Sampler
alyshia Smith
Love this place, a must go when in KC!
Paradiso T.
We were so happy to have an option to order vegan for pickup on New Years Day, and hopeful that we would have a new favorite to add to our rotation. If it was just about the deliciousness of the food we ultimately ate, this would be a 5 star review; unfortunately, literally NOTHING about our customer service experience would allow me to leave anything close to that. First, we showed up to pick up our food at 6:30 per our pickup time annnnd - they were closed. We spent the next few hours finding then waiting for our order to be complete at a very busy time, on one of the busiest restaurant days of the year. My very ill wife became more ill because she had nothing to eat - but we figured, everyone makes mistakes and judging from previous reviews it should be easy to resolve. Nope... We could have hoped that they would call us the next day to see if we wanted our order or a refund, or even just take the initiative to refund us - but instead had to call them two days later. My wife told the gal who answered the phone what had happened - no sympathy, no apology, no offer to make things right. When she said that we wanted to pick up that order at 4:30 that day, and to please make sure that the injera breads were gluten free because she is intolerant but the option wasn't offered when placing an order via the website, the hostess finally had something to say; my wife was informed that there would be an upcharge for the gf version. She responded that it seemed that comping gf bread was pretty much the least they could do to make up for us starving for hours on New Year's Day, there was again zero response. K... bye? A couple of hours later, a man called my wife to get more details about our "refund." Huh? She went through the entire spiel - again - and to his credit, he seemed a *little* sorry for our terrible night, and said they would comp the gf bread. But when I showed up on time for the pickup, I had to then wait 20 minutes for the food to be ready. A few people came out to apologize and said they'd added free stuff to the order and would call my wife again to apologize, which sounded great - but it turns out that the "apology" freebie was a ridiculous amount of $2 injera bread... but, while there was a *little* gluten free in there, it was almost all glutinous - so even if we had wanted a huge amount of inexpensive bread, my wife couldn't eat it - as they knew. Nowhere to go but the trash. And now, two days later, no one has called my wife. The good news? We did find a new favorite restaurant! Another nearby Blue business, with excellent customer service and vegan sushi. This business? As yummy as the food may have been, we won't be able to forget that our time and health needs are demonstrably not important to them. There are other great Ethiopian restaurants in the area; we'll continue to support the ones which seem to care about our experience, not this one.
Came here when it was mostly empty. We weren't greeted or seated. We had to grab our own drinks out of the fridge. No one approached us for about 20 mins after seating ourselves. We waited so long after we ordered our food (about 45 mins), so we attempted to leave and were forced to pay for everything we ordered before any drink or food arrived. They quickly brought our alcoholic bevarage and appetizers. We told our server that we could pay for the drink and appetizer, but they brought us the entire bill - which included the entre we didn't get. Just a horrible experience overall.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
I’ve had Ethiopian food countless times and whatever you guys are selling is a joke. No heat in the spices just blunt cold food. Very disappointed. In response to your threat, did you see anywhere that I mentioned Kenyan food? If you can’t take positive criticism and better your business I don’t know what you expected me to say. Again, I’ve had Ethiopian food countless times and this was not it.
I’ve been coming to this restaurant for over 15 years …. The food has been amazingly consistent. I’ve been to others throughout the US , they’ve come close , but no
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Veggie Sambusa, Meat Sampler Platter
I knew it would be good but it was SO amazing and so flavorful. Friendly fast service. So much food for the price. Will be back again asap. We got vegetarian but I can’t wait to come back and try everything else.Dietary restrictions: They asked if we wanted gluten free. Nice touch.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Vegetarian Sampler
The only reason this review isn't a five is because they seemed a little under-staffed at our time of visiting, which led to some pretty long wait times. We ate out on the patio and had a lovely time. I highly recommend the Vegetarian Sampler Platter that comes with so many dishes to try. The mushrooms and potatoes are fantastic! Some of the best Ethiopian food we've had. A must-visit if you're in KC.
It was a terrific vegan experience! Food was impeccable. The nice young man who was our waiter even asked if my dog would like water! Beautiful experience.Vegetarian options: Half the menu was vegan- wow that is just so very rare.Am super excited they are DOG FRIENDLY!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Sampler Platter
Located in the heart of the city market, this Ethiopian restaurant is a hidden gem and a must try for your next visit to Kansas City! To start out with, we ordered the veggies sambusa. For those who have never had Ethiopian before, this is similar to a samosa from Indian cuisine or an empanada from Latin American cuisine. It was a pastry filled with lentils and veggies, and I'd highly recommend giving it a try. We were a party of 3 and we weren't too hungry the night we visited so we decided to share the sampler platter combo for our main meal, as was recommended by our friendly waiting staff. This dish featured all 8 of the veggie options and 3 meat options. In my opinion, this was the perfect way to try everything. My favorite of the veggie options is yellow split pea, number 4; my favorite of the meat option was the Doro watt, number 10, which was the marinated chicken. All of the options on the platter were fantastic and tasty! For dessert, we tried the baklava. It was one of the sweetest and tastiest baklavas I have eaten, and I'd highly recommend this as the perfect way to finish your night! The restaurant itself is casual so you don't need to dress very fancy for it and the seating is cafe style. It's a tasty and quaint way to spend an evening!
Best Ethiopian food I've ever had!! I've tried a lot of Ethiopian food and this was by the first bite my all time favorite. The service was very polite as well. 10/10
Excellent food. An authentic experience.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Veggie Sambusa, Sampler Platter
This was my first time trying Ethiopian food, and it was very nice. We shared the vegetarian sampler and agreed that the spicy red lentils were the best, though everything tasted great. The highlight for me, though, was the spiced tea. It was easily the most flavorful and satisfying tea I've ever tasted, and I hope to be able to replicate it at home.Like most of the eating options at the City Market, it's a little cramped inside, and you don't really get any cultural or individualistic flavor from the the interior, but that's a minor nitpick given that the food hits the mark.Vegetarian options: Typically, a restaurant that isn't dedicated solely to vegetarian or vegan food will have one or two token options for those who don't want meat. I'm not complaining — it wasn't too long ago when expecting even that much was ridiculous. But a restaurant that has deep and varied menus for veggie lovers and carnivores alike is a treasure. This isn't what I would call the "Mexican restaurant" model of vegetarian menus, featuring mostly the same few ingredients shuffled around in uninspiring, copy-and-pasted ways. These are real dishes with distinct identities and obvious care put into their creation. I'm sure the same is true for the meat dishes. Well done, Blue Nile!
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Vegetarian Sampler
Restaurantji Recommends
Love the
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Vegetarian options: The misir wett was to die for!!!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Veggie Combo
Everything here is amazing. We came by at 6pm on a rainy Friday evening and was shocked it wasn't more packed! KC is sleeping on this place.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Vegetarian Sampler
Love this place, a must go when in KC!
We were so happy to have an option to order vegan for pickup on New Years Day, and hopeful that we would have a new favorite to add to our rotation. If it was just about the deliciousness of the food we ultimately ate, this would be a 5 star review; unfortunately, literally NOTHING about our customer service experience would allow me to leave anything close to that. First, we showed up to pick up our food at 6:30 per our pickup time annnnd - they were closed. We spent the next few hours finding then waiting for our order to be complete at a very busy time, on one of the busiest restaurant days of the year. My very ill wife became more ill because she had nothing to eat - but we figured, everyone makes mistakes and judging from previous reviews it should be easy to resolve. Nope... We could have hoped that they would call us the next day to see if we wanted our order or a refund, or even just take the initiative to refund us - but instead had to call them two days later. My wife told the gal who answered the phone what had happened - no sympathy, no apology, no offer to make things right. When she said that we wanted to pick up that order at 4:30 that day, and to please make sure that the injera breads were gluten free because she is intolerant but the option wasn't offered when placing an order via the website, the hostess finally had something to say; my wife was informed that there would be an upcharge for the gf version. She responded that it seemed that comping gf bread was pretty much the least they could do to make up for us starving for hours on New Year's Day, there was again zero response. K... bye? A couple of hours later, a man called my wife to get more details about our "refund." Huh? She went through the entire spiel - again - and to his credit, he seemed a *little* sorry for our terrible night, and said they would comp the gf bread. But when I showed up on time for the pickup, I had to then wait 20 minutes for the food to be ready. A few people came out to apologize and said they'd added free stuff to the order and would call my wife again to apologize, which sounded great - but it turns out that the "apology" freebie was a ridiculous amount of $2 injera bread... but, while there was a *little* gluten free in there, it was almost all glutinous - so even if we had wanted a huge amount of inexpensive bread, my wife couldn't eat it - as they knew. Nowhere to go but the trash. And now, two days later, no one has called my wife. The good news? We did find a new favorite restaurant! Another nearby Blue business, with excellent customer service and vegan sushi. This business? As yummy as the food may have been, we won't be able to forget that our time and health needs are demonstrably not important to them. There are other great Ethiopian restaurants in the area; we'll continue to support the ones which seem to care about our experience, not this one.