Meskerem Ethiopian Restaurant Review – Athos

MeskeremOnline.com (under construction)
2434 18th St. NW
Washington, D.C.
20009-2004
202-462-4100

Subway – Adams Morgan (red line – about ½ mile away)
Parking – Street (very difficult, since it’s in the heart of Adams Morgan). Pay garage down the street and across.

I love traveling. I know I won’t be able to go everywhere I want to in my lifetime, so I try doing it vicariously in other ways. This time, I went to Ethiopia. Meskerem is in a prime location, since it’s in the center of Adams Morgan, an area of D.C. that is full of places to eat, drink, dance, and more. I’ve been there several times, and I recommend you going there, too. Enjoy my review, but I apologize in advance for the blurry pictures. I have a new camera that I am still on a learning curve.

Overall: B
Food: B-
Ethiopian Honey Wine - Axusm Tej Glass - $10: B-
Zilzil Tibbs - $11.95: B-
Meskerem Messob – $12.95/$24.95 (2 people): B-
Service: B-
Atmosphere: B+
Price: B+


The thing that attracts me the most to Meskerem is place itself. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but upon entering, you notice the restaurant opens to three floors. You walk in on the middle floor. It looks okay with some African art on the walls, and you can tell the building has been there for some time, like many places in D.C. The tables are small causing for an intimate feeling with your guests. I can’t comment on the bottom floor, since I’ve never been.

The top/third floor, however, is where the charm of Meskerem stands out. Like the middle floor, the tables are small, but rather than sitting in chairs, there are, what resembles, footstools.

You crowd around a small table where the food is placed. The place can get busy, so you’ll probably make friends with your neighbors at the next table. Hungry people will say they’re so hungry they can eat the table. That is sort of the concept when eating in Ethiopia. Rather than eating the table, you eat the tablecloth. The table is covered with injera, which is a type of cold, spongy unleavened bread. Whether it’s stew (wat), vegetables, salad, meat, or what have you, it’s placed on the tablecloth/injera. You tear off a piece of injera with your right hand, and pick up the food with it, thus there are no utensils. Meskerem tries to share that experience with you. They also give you extra injera on the side.

The wait staff are wearing African garb for lack of a better term. Our waitress was sort of helpful, so I ordered what she suggested: Zilzil Tibbs, and also chose the Meskerem Messob. To accompany the food, there was a glass of Ethiopian honey wine called Axusm Tej. I do drink wine, but I’m not a wine drinker, if that makes sense. To clarify, I’ll drink it if it’s available, and if I’m curious, I’ll try it, as was the case here, but I am not a wine drinker per se, since I don’t feel it a necessity. I did enjoy the wine for a non-wine drinker, but I didn’t order a second glass and stuck with refills of water. It had a nice color to it, smelled delightful, and the taste wasn’t bad. (Again, I’m not a wine drinker.)

The Zilzil Tibbs were not bad. Tibbs are grilled meat covered with sauce and spices. The sauce was good, but the beef was off this visit. They were tender, but they were dry. They really needed the sauce. The tibbs are in the middle of the dish in the (blurry) picture. (The picture looked great in the viewfinder of the camera! Much to my chagrin, they were THAT blurry when I looked at them on the computer screen.)

The Meskerem Messob is like a sampler. Sort of. There are too many things in Ethiopian cuisine, and this just scratches the surface. There were different “salads,” including one made with potatoes, another with sauce and meat, one with a two chicken legs, one with a hard boiled egg, and then a yellow sauce that I wasn’t sure what it was made of except that it was good. Apologies for the little detail of what the dish was composed of, but when you eat with your hand, I stopped taking notes, and my memory is that of a child (or the elderly?).

My favorite part of eating Ethiopian food is tearing the injera from underneath the food, since it acts as a sponge and absorbs the flavor in full. And if you’re at an Ethiopian place, or talking to an Ethiopian, ask them about a dish called kikil. You want them to say it. The first “kik” in “kikil” is pronounced with the sound of an aluminum can being crushed, and the “il” part resembles a slight gulping sound. You really need to hear someone pronounce it properly.

Although I enjoy going to Meskerem, it’s more for the location and the ambience. The food is good, but I know there’s another Ethiopian place in Arlington, Virginia that’s not too far from there by car where parking is free and easily accessible, and the food is better. There’s also a bar and a bakery attached to it and newly remodeled. Some day I’ll go there to create a proper review. But I still recommend Meskerem. This is why I keep going back and bring friends. The low price helps my review as well.