Abay Market

We got a delivery of vegetarian combo and it was great. We finished very quickly and wanted more Great to have option to eat great Ethiopian good during Covid!

Amazing customer service. I felt like I was at my grandmothers house. They treated us so well. We ordered a little bit of most the menu. They separated all the veggie dishes from the meat ones. My girlfriend who is a vegan greatly appreciated this. The food was extremely flavorful. Amazing mix of spices. They were incredibly hospitable and took care of all our needs. I highly recommend.

Abay market is much like a rocket ship in that it only does one thing, but damn does it do it well. There are 6 tables, 2 glass fronted drink fridges, and a menu that has I think 4 items on it. 3 of the items appear to be cooked, and 1 is the now famous "tartar" which appeared on No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain. The owner is a delightful gentleman who I've recognized from my long patronage at Fairouz next door. He recognized me right away and greeted us warmly. We then asked for advice on what to pick. We wanted something spicy, and not raw! lol. I'm not really sure to be perfectly honest with you what we ended up with. I think it was a spicy beef that arrived on an ample for two, pillow of Injera, with a side of homemade cheese. Everything was excellent and the whole experience was slightly haphazard in a way only a hole in the wall could do it. I love this place. They keep it really simple. If you want an all veggie dish, the owner plainly said that you'd need to request the special meal 2 days ahead for them to shop for the ingredients and have it ready. To be honest though, do you know of any restaurant that is going to take a special order from you, shop specifically for the ingredients to make your meal which is totally off menu, and then just charge you the regular meal price? Yeah, this place is pretty special. I love you Abay Market, and I'll see you again soon.

This place has decent tibs that are maybe a bit fattier than you'd normally want. I ordered delivery from here on a whim through a new delivery service that comped my meal. I ordered tibs. What I received was tasty but maybe not as good as other places in the area: the meat was a bit fattier than I'd have normally liked. The absolutely excellent injera and spices almost made up for it, but not entirely. I can't complain too much - free meal - but would have been slightly miffed had I paid full price.

I was lucky enough to stumble upon this gem of a restaurant hidden at the end of the Skyline shopping plaza. The first time I went the Tere Sega was not available, but I liked the Kitfo and Tibs so much that I decided that I had to go back another time to try the Tere Sega. Damn am I glad that I did! By my third visit, the owner (Yonas) had recognized me and was incredibly friendly.If you like beef and aren't afraid to try it raw, I dare you to find anything as tasty as these cubes of delicious grass-fed cow, dipped in Berbere (Ethopian spice mix)!Don't let the spartan interior fool you! This place is the real deal for some absolutely incredible Ethopian fare. I've tried to find Ethopian food even half as good back home in LA, but have failed unfortunately.

3.5 - So here's the breakdown on this Ethiopian hole in the wall:About 6 tables.5 Menu Items (All red meat.)Cold beverages only.Very laid back with a super friendly staff, including the "guy in charge."For what they have, it is delicious, and definitely for the price. The two of us split some sort of tibs...I want to say... #4 for $14. Not bad. I asked the owner for whatever was spiciest and fully cooked and that's what I got. Tender little pieces of meat with spices on injera. What I found interesting was the side of homemade cottage cheese they included with the dish. I've never seen that at any of the other Ethiopian restaurants I've dined at and liked the fact that it really helped cool down my mouth after engulfing all that spicy meat. I asked the owner if they have anything other than meat available and he told me they don't. HOWEVER they would be happy to make vegetarian dishes IF we call 2 days ahead of time. Sweet!The owner and the ladies in the back cooking were super friendly and served us with smiles. To me, happy, friendly owners and cooks usually equates to good food - that's what you get here. If I ever wanted a cheap and quick red meat only Ethiopian bite to eat, I'd come here.

I've eaten at about 20 Ethiopian restaurants in my life. This is the best. It's a hole in the wall joint in the middle of a strip mall. There are about 5 other Ethiopian restaurants in this strip mall, but the one with the cracked sign was the one we chose. There are 5 options on the menu. Five. No descriptions. The drink menu is a fridge in the back. No appetizers. Real men go right to the meal. The owner realized our Westerness and guided us through the menu. He told us what not to get and what to try. We wanted to try the picture of the slabs of raw meat on the menu and he suggested against ordering the large order. Good call. We had Lamb and some other raw meat that came with cheese. I'm not a culinary writer, so I didn't write down the names of what I was eating. I was too busy stuffing the delicious food in my mouth to think about writing anything down. The food was spicy. So spicy that it cut off my ear canals and I had a hard time hearing. You may want to ask for mild, but this place is so old school that I'm not sure you'll get it. All the customers are Ethiopian, so you know you're in a good place. Parking, yeah, parking can be fun. Be aggressive. Don't let these suburbanites push you around. Did I mention this place was featured on the Travel Channel. That one with the older guy with rings on his fingers. Bourdaine or something. Anyway, he doesn't mess around with the places he chooses and this place is great.

Spot has tremendous backing in the ethio community. Not from the area so I definitely wanted to scope it out.As an Ethiopian American, I wanted something homemade/ comfort food so I orderd the "kikil" a brothy seasoned meat stew. Slightly disappointed, almost flavorless. Maybe I'll come again, it's a fringe dish so I'm betting the more common dishes would more than suffice.

Raw Meat palace.when you come here, order: "Tere Sega" (cubes of raw beef from grass fed, free range cows) "Kitfo" (Gurage people type of raw beef that is mixed with niter kibeh butter and Ethiopian spices).the best way to enjoy kitfo is by ordering it raw (tere) or leb leb (heat in 10 seconds). there are few ways to prepare kitfo.tere (raw) - leb leb (heat in niter kibeh around 10 seconds) mok yale (to be warm) - geba yale (to go in the pan / med well) - yebesele (well done).Yebeg alicha: lamb stew braised in garlic, ginger, basil and butter.parking is difficult, the place is tiny, always ready for a plan B.

Update:This is a delayed update at that, but I have returned twice since the initial review. There are a few points that I should note for potential diners that hopefully will enhance your experience. 1) Tere Sega is not always available. The second time I went, I was disappointed to discover that they did not have Tere Sega available that day. This was due to their stocks being depleted or perhaps freshness of the beef. Jonas indicated that they receive their shipment on a certain day (this was awhile ago- I believe he said Saturday or Sunday, but don't quote me on it) and that said day was best in terms of guaranteeing availability/freshness. If you're going specifically for this dish, I would consider calling ahead just to check on availability. 2) There is another menu.I am convinced that all hole-in-the-wall restaurants that cater to expats and not a broader "Western clientele" have secret menus. I am aware from first-hand experience that Chinese restaurants are notorious for doing this. It isn't that the menu is an unsaid premise that exists only in the heads of devoted clientele and the kitchen. However, the English-language menu provided to you at Abay Market is NOT the full menu. I noticed all tables had a little business card sized document entirely in Amharic (the national language of Ethiopia). I inquired whether this was a menu and the waitress indicated that it is, but that it is the same as the English language version. NOT TRUE.After a great deal of translation work (Amharic is for some odd reason, nearly impossible to punch out an internet translation of), I present to you the full menu available at Abay Market (Original Amharic Text/Transliteration/Best guess what it is): Abay leyu quret (special raw meat) Abay dulet (tripe and other bits) Abay kitfo (raw ground beef) Gored gored (raw chunks of beef- difference from tere sega is unknown) Yebeg tibs (lamb) Yebere shnt tibs (beef ribeye) Yebeg alicha (lamb yellowish stew) Yebere choma tibs (fatty beef) Yequanta tibs (dried beef/jerky) Yequanta firfir (dried beef with injera bits) Melasena sember (tripe and tongue) Ayibe kitfo (cheese kitfo?)The items that are missing from the English menu off-hand are anything that contains dried beef (I have no idea what that actually is) and the tripe. My guess is that these are a little more ambitious and might be too much for most "American palettes" and thus are left off. I have not tried anything from this menu, but next time I go I will be checking at least some of them out/figuring out what they all are.