Cafe Dareye

Beautiful shop, nice people, and beautiful vegan food. I remember when the mini combo was under $20. It's not anymore, but it's more than enough to fill me up

Randomly stumbled upon Cafe Dareye while walking on Telegraph Ave. and looking to buy lunch. This is not a typical restaurant as there are no tables inside. There are 2 tables with some chairs outside the storefront. The shop sells a little of everything ranging from coffee beans to tea to dried snacks and spices. They only sell 1 vegan combo that includes different lentils and greens sitting on top of this spongy bread called injera. All I had to decide was if I wanted a regular or full size, which I opted for the full. Side comment: Sometimes restaurants offer too many options and it becomes hard to decide, but not Cafe Dareye! The flavors were amazing, the spices really infused into the food and the best part was that I didn't feel sluggish or tired after eating. The mother and daughter duo were super friendly as I mentioned it was my first time at their shop. I'm already looking forward to my next visit! #8/2020

Best veggie combo around. Strong recommend! Wonderful supplies also - hear up for big weekend cooks or a gift for a friend.

Conveniently located on Telegraph and owned by friendly people. A nice place for grabbing lunch. There isn't any indoor seating, and the outdoor tables are quite small so it's definitely a place to dine solo or with one other person. Full plate was a decent size, half order would've been too small in my opinion. The food here isn't as expensive as other Oakland Ethiopian spots and it's pretty good. Cheesecake wasn't the best though, it was reminiscent of daiya cheesecake and I'm just not into that flavor.I love that they sell various other goodies here like bulk ingredients, spices, grains, teacups, pans, etc.

food and service was incredible!! my friend and i tried this place out today and cannot wait to go back. definitely worth it to get the full plate but even the half portion was a generous amount of food.

Veggie combo hits every time! Food is always fresh, the service is very kind and you can have fun shopping while you wait for them to prepare your food. They only offer veggie, hot prepared food.

It's kind of a stretch to call this a cafe because it's primarily an Ethiopian mini-mart with lots of kitchen supplies, injera fixings, and dried lentil beans taking up most of the store. When I looked at the chalkboard menu, there was only one item featured, the Veggie Combo, no other options. It was made up of five items - red lentil beans, split pea, collard greens, salad, and stuffed jalapeño on house-made injera. Good thing that's my favorite Ethiopian dish, and they put it in a plastic takeout carton (photo: http://bit.ly/2XfPUwW). Why no plate?That's because there are only two tables outside on the sidewalk, one that was just vacated as I was ready to sit down and eat. My al fresco dining experience, however, was highly compromised by the crime scene that was occurring in real time in front of me. Three cops had to tackle a shirtless guy who was running out of a neighboring shop and looked like he was as high as a kite. He kept giving me a death stare as he was being handcuffed and I was picking up my jalapeño. I don't blame the owner for what happened, but hey, welcome to Oakland, baby.FOOD - 4 stars...if I focus on the food, it was choiceAMBIANCE - 3 stars...well, the store was atmospheric and outside was just too atmospheric SERVICE - 3.5 stars...nice enough but they disappeared when the crime scene occurred TOTAL - 4 stars...I'll just focus my memory on the veggie comboRELATED - Lost in Oakland? Here's a collection of places I've visited and reviewed: http://bit.ly/2ObVcpQ

This is a tiny vegan Ethiopian shop and cafe that has no indoor seating. If you're coming here to eat, you'll end up sitting on the sidewalk at one of their three small tables (which is fine, except for if it's cold or raining).The menu is small. You can either get a half-order veggie combo or a full-order veggie combo. I got the full-order veggie combo ($12). This is a huge portion and good enough for two people, though it's hard to eat and messy in the plastic takeout container they give.I thought the flavors of each dish were fine, but the texture was overly soupy on the kik alicha and misir wot. The kik alicha also went heavy on the turmeric. I did enjoy the jalapeno stuffed with tomatoes and onions (be warned it's spicy!).By the way, I normally hate the veggie combo, because it's a scam: I really love two Ethiopian dishes---misir wot (lentils in berbere sauce) and kik alicha (split peas in a turmeric sauce)---so I'd rather just get large portions of those two dishes than be saddled with tiny portions of other dishes that are bland filler (boiled collard greens? lettuce and tomato salad?).I'm not impressed with the Ethiopian food in the Bay Area, though I know people rave about Ensarro and Cafe Colucci in Oakland. If you've been to the Ethiopian spots in Minneapolis-St. Paul (which has about a couple dozen), LA, Chicago or DC, Cafe Dareye won't convince you of anything.

Got the full veggie combo. I haven't had Ethiopian food in a minute, but everything was great.The cook/owner? made it decently fresh, only took 5-7 minutes to get my food, very cordial. I would go again for sure. It is a decent sized meal, great value.

The absolutely best veggie combo. Please support this small family-owned business, take out only, good selection of spices for sale as well. Gluten free injera available.