Reviews for Blue Nile Ethiopian in Ottawa, ON
The food was amazing! We haven't eaten here since before Covid! The food was even better than what I remembered! Great portion... sizes for a great price. We ordered the vegetarian combination along with other vegetarian sides and appetizers! They providedextra enjera, which was very fresh. It was delicious! Read more
The first two time were better.they didn't offer tea or dessert. A little bit slow the service
I ordered take out and they do not package the food well which led to a disappointing experience and feeling like I wasted my... money as it is not cheap. They pack the injera and stew together so by the time you get the delivery the injera has absorbedalmost all the stew and there is very little left and injera is just soggy. Seems to be a very small portion of stew and theygive you so much injera. Please pack the stew in a separate container to avoid this. Only giving 2 stars because the little Ihad left of the chickpea dish which wasn?t absorbed by the injera was tasty. Read more
Seriously good Ethiopian food! After trying to get fed from the kinkole (African) festival which unfortunately was a bust due to... timing we went in search of some GOOD African cuisine. Enter google search and Blue Nile on Gladstone shows up. Thank goodnessfor that! Our family of 4 (2a 2c) loaded into a table of this modest location. Upon walking in the smells of spice and warmcooking wraps you like a big hug. Now, it's important to understand this is NOT fast food, nor is it meant to be. The food andthe experience is to be enjoyed with a little time. Time to cook breeds deep flavours, time to wait breeds deep conversationsand taking a little time to slow down is perfect. We ordered the Blue Nile combo and the lamb tibs with 3 sambussas (2 beef 1veg) as an appetizer. With a coffee (my wife said it was delicious) juice and water the 4 of us left full for a modest $48tab. Now the food...hot, fresh, deep deep flavours throughout. Injera bread is plentiful and not only tasty but used as theutensil. (Instructions on how to eat with it is conveniently on the back of the menu in clear picture style.) For our children,forks were provided upon asking. The sambussas are like a samosa or empanada but from a different flavour profile and the onlyproblem with them is that they disappear from the plate too quickly! You may be wondering why the 4 stars instead of 5. Thatsimply goes to the cleanliness. While the tables and chairs and restaurant in general were clean, the bathrooms were certainlylacking. It looked as though they could use a solid once over with a bunch of cleaning products to bring them up to standard.Yes, the rule is that if the bathroom is bad then don't trust the kitchen but fortunately the kitchen door is open and a look inshowed no issues there. Bottom line...if you want to eat GOOD Ethiopian food with pleasant staff and in a nice relaxedatmosphere, this is the place to go! Read more
White person here, so not at all an authority on Ethiopian cuisine and no idea which dishes were which, but figured I'd leave a... review anyway. Preferred the beef sambusa to the veggie, but both had delicious pastry; my friend and I ordered both the veggieand beef combination plates because I like trying a bit of everything. It was all beautifully made and spiced; my favourite wasthe veggie platter, and in particular the yellow veggies (cabbage?) and carrots that came with both- also really loved theirexplanation of teff on their website that talks about all the extra nutrients in the bread and the history of kaffe. I'm also abig big fan of the lovely spongey texture of the bread, and eating it all with my hands- bonus that my fingertips smelledphenomenal all evening afterwards. ....And perhaps T.M.I... but I feel like it would be a disservice to the experience to leaveout that my BM the next morning was quite possibly one of the easiest and satisfying I've had in years. Very grateful and woulddefinitely love to order again at some point. Also loved the artwork I was able to admire during takeout pickup, and feltespecially spoiled to hear some beautiful singing while I waited briefly. (Currently no dining service, which is totally fair.)Thank you! Read more
We wanted to checkout some Ethiopian food and went to Blue Nile on a Wednesday evening. The restaurant is pretty small but we... were the only customers at that time. The serving lady, who I believe is the owners her self came and greeted us warmly and gavethe menus. We ordered mix vegetarian, mix chicken and a vegi only dish. The food took a very long time to come( almost 1 hour -and hence deduct one star) and my daughter was very hungry and was complaining. We saw that few people came, ordered and go,only to return much later. Assume regulars who knew that food takes a long time here!! Finally the food came and we all enjoyedit. There were different types of vegetable, grain dishes and chicken served on my plate. The portion was good which I sharedwith my son. The food had good flavour but I was not much of a fan of the "Injera"( wrap/bread made out of a certain grass seed)which had a sharp sour taste. My wife is a Ethiopian food fan, and she enjoyed the vegetarian dish very much. I found thepricing to be very reasonable. Overall a good experience. Read more
Loved it. Quiet and relaxed. Food was delicious, and the host was happy to tell me all the traditional names for the dishes.... Took a while to get our order, but if you're in a hurry eat at a fast food joint. I'll be back! Read more
The beef combination platter is perfect. The stews are perfectly spiced and are to die for. Takeout is a bit tricky because the... injera soaks up a lot of the stew and becomes a bit soggy but eat it just in time and it?s perfect. Will keep coming back! Read more