Reviews for East African Cafe in Kitchener, ON
Super friendly staff, very unique atmosphere, the food is very affordable and lots of flavor to enjoy, if you want to try... something a little different this is definitely a place to visit. We both had enough to eat and had a non alcoholic beverage for26 dollars total where else would you get a dollar value like that. Read more
The East Africa Cafe was a completely new dining experience for me. I was impressed with the flavours of the meat and vegetable... dishes. Scooping up the variety of tasty options with "Injera" (Ethiopian Flatbread) was a fun and rewarding treat. Read more
Positives: - The food was delicious. - A server seated behind the bar was helpful. Negatives: - The atmosphere wasn't relaxing.... The TV behind the bar was on and it played music videos at a high volume. - The restaurant was unclean. - The server had veryuntidy long hair that we wouldn't be surprised if it may have fallen into the food. Read more
Ordered the vegetarian platter to go which also happens to be vegan. It has to be one of the best options to try a bunch of... different stews. My favourites had to be the Tikil Gomen and the Ater Alicia. If you like it spicy, you can always ask for afew chillies ???? on the side. The owner was very kind and the service was quick. Highly recommend this location when you arecraving some East African food! Read more
Ordered take out, two large portions that lasted two adults for a full dinner and lunch, for $40. First time trying East... African food and it was very good! The platters come with many flavourful options and a lot, A LOT; of the ?bread? (injera). Wefound the vegetarian options were the most flavourful. They were able to make the food less spicy for us, though I wouldrecommend the heat if you can handle it. Highly recommend calling about 15-25 mins before hand to give them time to prepare, ifordering take out. Sadly we had to eat the food 3 hours after ordering (our own fault), but even still it was very good. Read more
We wanted to try an Ethiopian restaurant and the East African Cafe came up on a Google search, so we decided to give it a try... since we wanted something vegan. City owned paid parking is available on the side of the building just a few steps from thecafe. We arrived at 3:30 pm on a Saturday afternoon and noticed there were only two other patrons inside. The inside of thecafe is well worn. It's an older building with a lot of African decor. We noticed it's not the cleanest restaurant as we saw alot of dirt on the window frame and floor. The men's restroom seemed like it hadn't been cleaned in a couple of days but wasn'ttotally disgusting. If the owners paid a little more attention to cleanliness it would make the cafe more appealing. The cafehas no WiFi; we're good with that. The owner was very friendly and helpful when explaining the menu. Owner and his wife workinside. Food: very tasty! We ordered the Vegan Combo because we wanted to try a little of everything and a Shiro plate. Onething we liked very much is that you eat without utensils. You simply break off a piece of their sour dough bread and grab thefood with it in your fingers. We've eaten like this before and food tastes so much better than putting metal utensils in yourmouth. I was expecting some of the vegan items to have a little more seasoning, as some seemed a little bland but I image that'sthe way it's supposed to taste; we've never had African cuisine. The cabbage and lentil vegan items were definitely ourfavourites! One thing I definitely don't like is that they reheat food in a microwave. Microwaves have no place in restaurants,especially this one that serves good fresh homemade food. So the ultimate question is, would we return? This restaurant hasgood food and lots of potential but sadly, however until we read more in depth positive reviews, we won't likely return. Read more
Great food choices and very affordable for a lot of food! A little slower service, but overall great vibe especially with... friends. Read more
Well, the food was good - we got the vegetarian platter; the hamlie was wonderful and I also enjoyed the Misir and Ater Alicha... (though they were blander than some places) but as we were eating, my husband said "it doesn't matter how the food is; I neverwant to come here again." The music was SO LOUD, it was like a nightclub, not a restaurant--and every time an ad came on, it waseven louder and more abrasive. I've been to another Ethiopian restaurant that was like that, so maybe it's a cultural thing? Butit was really unpleasant. We couldn't hear what the server said, and she couldn't hear us very well, which made orderingdifficult. Then we were trying to have a conversation during dinner but we got tired of yelling. Also, as someone elsementioned, the server had hair hanging in her face (luckily there was none in the food), and the service was rather slow eventhough there was hardly anyone else there. We needed a place to go for dinner between lessons nearby, but next time we will findsomewhere else. It might be good for takeout though. Read more