Meskerem

I've been here twice, and I plan to go back many more times. Despite it being a restaurant with great service and food, I'm usually able to get a reservation relatively easily for dinner. When you first walk in, you see a bunch of regular tables, and the restaurant doesn't look too different from other places. However, I recommend sitting upstairs as it's more of an experience with sitting on stools and having a low-set basket table in the middle and is nicely decorated.
The honey wine is very good to start with. The appetizers are delicious although small. I usually get one of the combo sort of entrees to share with those with me. It has beef, lamb, chicken, egg, spices and vegetables. I think on the dish, my favorites are the vegetable parts and the beef. The chicken served is on the bone. Whenever the shared plate is put in front of me I think to myself that it won't be enough food. However, it usually is! Dinner and drinks are reasonably priced as well.
Bathrooms are clean, and the service is great. Like I already mentioned, I plan to come back here, and I think it's the best Ethiopian restaurant I've been to in DC so far.

I have been in DC area for 17 years and seen this place running. I remember in year 1999 this place has good business and good service. For the past 2 years when I took my friend over to enjoy the food. Not only I felt the food have very small portion, but also the service was not great either. Ladies were very slow and had long face. The price was not good either. I felt a little bit too expensive. The place looked ran down as well. The business is a lot less than years ago. I am glad it is closed.

I went to Meskerem to redeem a voucher for dinner and a coffee ceremony with some friends on 1/13/15.

I had never had Ethiopian food prior to this experience. However people had described it to me so I knew what to expect.

Meskerem is a relatively large restaurant and I found the noise level in the restaurant perfect to have a conversation. The décor is also comfortable. However this fact is not enough to bring it to a higher rating for me. Our waitress waited over 40 minutes to take our orders and as we placed our orders she seemed unable to answer some basic questions for some "newbies" that were having Ethiopian food for the 1st time. I was also disappointed that when I was given my appetizer that it had meat in it after specifically stating that I was a vegetarian before placing the order. I didn't realize it contained meat until I took (and had) a bite. Although I was given a new appetizer, I could imagine this be greatly upsetting a stricter vegetarian than myself.

I also found the dinner lacked flavor and this was confirmed by my friends who had Ethiopian food before.

The Balaklava dessert (which we had to ask for the waitress to bring to us after almost 30 minutes after dinner was completed) was good. However I don't think I would make the trek out to Adams Morgan from where I am again specifically for it.

Meskerem was considered the best Ethiopian restaurant in town when I lived here; but that was a long time ago. Today Yelp rates a few others higher, and an Ethiopian cab driver told us of yet another place.  But for old times sake, we decided to bring the family here for our last night in D.C.

I was a little surprised to discover the décor at Meskerem is EXACTY the same as it was 15 years ago.  It's looking very worn and dated.  The neon-backed panels lining the walls were kind of new and different when they opened. Now they're beginning to look a little warped.  In short, Meskerem needs to think about getting a décor upgrade.

The food, however, was exactly as I remember it.  We ordered our usual Meskerem Mesob, which was a large platter with a sampling of various vegetarian and meat dishes. My oldest ordered a beef dish that looked interesting to her, and the staff was nice enough to add it directly to the Mesob platter.  The injera bread arrived shortly before the platter, and we enjoyed the kids initial confusion at why their "napkins" were so spongy.  They also kept wondering about the lack of silverware. (We explained).

As for the platter itself, the yellow peas and lentils were tasty, the various meat dishes were fine, though I was not as impressed with the chicken. My absolute favorite was the spiced lamb. Consequently I may have been a little unfair in the "sharing" category.

As for service, it was really off.  It was difficult to find our waitress, and waitresses for other tables didn't really want to assist us. It made me really wish they were using the service sharing model that some restaurants employ.

Beer list was unimpressive, as expected. I tried an Ethiopian beer (forget the name), and it tasted like Schlitz.  I decided not to care, for old times sake.

This is probably the least practical review to ever hit yelp.

What I will say --

They have okay food. I didn't know half of what I was eating, but all was solid and tasty. They do NOT offer you silverware for dining. You must eat with your hands unless you ask for utensils. Don't ask for them though. Be authentic and eat it as it was given to you. The injera (the Ethiopian sponge bread) is perfect for picking things up. Roll with it.

Service is decent. The servers dress in authentic Ethiopian attire. I think it adds a little bit of spice to the restaurant.

My only complaint about this restaurant is that the bathrooms are a little dingy. It was far from the cleanest restaurant I've ever been to also, but it definitely was not the worst.

Worth returning for a second visit.

I absolutely LOVE Ethiopian food, seriously love it.  It reminds me of southern food but with more spices.  We have eaten at several different Ethiopian places over the years and we have had some good and some not so good experiences.  Meskerem was your pretty middle of the road, standard Eth. meal.  It was good, but nothing blew me away here.  Everything was cooked wonderfully and the lamb (which is usually my favorite anyway) was quite good.  Between the four of us we all ordered the standard meal per person that included lamb, beef, chicken, and some veggie sides.  It was served as most Eth. dishes as family style with rolls of injera bread to eat with.  

If you want an Ethiopian place to eat in Adams Morgan, I am not sure of any other ones, but this would probably be your best bet. It is in the heart of Adams Morgan with tons of great bars surrounding it.  The decor was less than desirable and the service was slow.  But as usual, we left extremely full (every time I eat Ethiopian food, I eat like I have not consumed food for a week. I always over eat.) and ready to walk off some of the food we consumed.  

Just a note: Our favorite Ethiopian restaurant by far, so far, is Etete.

It was ok. The green tea honey wine was good but I like the fit fit better than the platter

We had a delicious platter of the vegetarian combo. It was so yummy that we had to have two more servings of two of the dishes.  I am a picky eater and a somewhat uniformed one.  I don't know which  dish is which.  I just know they are all scrumptious!

We also had two different types of veggie sambusas. Quite tasty too!

We sat on the main floor.  There was a basement with a bar and a 3rd floor with more tables.  Very pleasant ambiance and extremely nice wait staff.

We'd definitely go back there on our next visit.

Prices reasonable; comparable to Bay Area Ethiopian eateries.

3.5 Stars

For appetizers, we both had the tomato salad. It was diced tomatoes and onions in a tangy olive oil and lemon dressing, which was simple and refreshing since it was so stuffy inside the restaurant. Then for entrees, I had the Yebeg Alitcha (mildly spicy lamb) and my friend had the vegetarian platter of different veggie dishes. It was my first Ethiopian food experience so I can't say I'm a pro but I am an OG meat lover and the lamb was tender and nowhere near 'mildly spicy'. There was plenty of juice from the lamb, which kept the meat soft in texture. My friend's platter came with 7 side dishes ranging from potato, chickpeas, spinach (I'm not positive it was spinach but it was some type of stringy cooked greens) to pumpkin.

The food was enjoyable but the service was, EH!
I don't believe you should ever rush or make a customer feel rushed to finish or leave. Yes, we may have taken a little bit longer than normal because we were eating and chit chatting but there were plenty of other available seats around. The waitress asked if we were done and I told her, "No, I'm still working on it". That kinda irked me. And also, do they not have A/C in there or did we just go on a bad day?!?

So sad to learn that this establishment is now closed and the building has been sold for $1.7 million! I loved this Ethiopian restaurant as it was my first ever experience with Ethiopian cuisine!!!