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| - My boyfriend and I went into the restaurant hungry and excited to try the food. We were obviously new to Ethiopian food and thus unfamiliar with the items on the menu. The waitress kept rushing us into ordering, and offered no suggestions until we had asked her. We ordered a chicken dish in spiced butter (waitress' recommendation) and a beef dish that came in a cast iron pan. We had also ordered tea and coffee. My boyfriend and I waited for almost an hour for the food to come. My ginger tea was forgotten, but we gave the waitress the benefit of the doubt that the fresh ginger would take awhile to boil. The food came before my tea, and when I asked her about it, it was obvious that she had forgotten about it. The food was cold and very bland. The chicken dish was sour, flavourless and cold. It was definitely not buttery and full of spices, as the menu stated. The beef dish was overcooked and cold, despite the cast iron dish that it came in. My boyfriend and I had had Ethiopian food once before (Ethiopiques) and it was not as bland as the food from Lalibela.
My boyfriend had asked for his coffee to come after his meal. When we asked our waitress to pack up our food, and we also reminded her about the coffee. After waiting for a good 20 minutes, we both knew that she had forgotten about us again. While sitting around, we noticed that a bigger group of familiar customers were being served. The waitresses refilled their water (our water was NEVER refilled! And our PAID drinks were NEVER brought to us!!). My boyfriend and I got sick of waiting around for the coffee, so we went up to pay for our bill. It turns out, our waitress never even took down the coffee order.
To recap, the food is bland and flavourless, and the service is nonexistent. Sometimes I'd let some service slip-ups slide if the food were decent. However, the food at Lalibela did not even make up for their lack of service. Please do yourself a favour and avoid this awful place.
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